In.Sight - When Organizing, Be Organized

In the vein of “What Not To Wear”, Nat and I thought it would be a good idea to have a recurring theme on the basic mistakes that artists and behind-the-scenesters involved in cultural events and projects make. Seeing as how we are both immersed in the industry on a daily basis, we come across lots of blatantly bad behaviour and we often want to yell at people. But since that’s not professional or productive, we thought we would let it out here, on our Indyish blog, in a polite and nameless fashion. Here’s our first installment, we look forward to your feedback!

In.Sight : Organizing a Festival (or other events and happenings)

I just spent the bulk of my weekend volunteering at a festival that shall remain unnamed. Seeing as how all I had to do was take tickets and slap those water-slide style bracelets on people’s arms, I was in a prime spot to observe what happens when showbusiness leans too much towards one side or the other.

The organizers did two things that you should never do: they panicked about being over budget (in front of the public) and freaked about too many people getting in on a guestlist that was very badly organized (in front of the public). There are 3 lessons to be learned from this.

1. No amount of planning will save you from dashing across the city to replace a broken mic, or having to order an extra pizza because someone is allergic to green peppers. Events, be they cultural or corporate, are no place for stickler budgets, that goes for a $50 budget as much as a $10,000 one. Be prepared, and don’t freak out!

2. Keep things simple, and organized. If you have a guestlist on three different pages, with each artist bringing in their own list, and promoters telling you to just let 10 people in under their name… it’s bound to get out of control. Along this line, keep your communications tight! The tech crew don’t want to deal with 20 “oh and one more thing” e-mails from you in the week leading up to your event. Ten of those “one more things” will probably not get done. And the tech crew won’t like you very much. And tech people have a reeeeeally good memory. There’s no secret here, just take your time and use common sense.

3. There’s a time for show and a time for business. It’s rarely good to mix both, unless you’ve been in it long enough to read a rider like a traffic sign, and few people have. Pulling a hissy fit about anything, be it your guestlist, your budget, your friends not showing up, is not something you should do anywhere near your public/clients. In fact, if you can, save it for after closing time, because, as we all know, you may THINK no one’s paying attention, but…

Bottom line, if you’re the (wo)man in charge, be prepared, and smile even if you don’t want to. Your stress will make a mess! Take mistakes as lessons learned for next time, not reasons to freak out this time. Go with the flow and get on with the show.

- Nadine