seems to me that the generator stage as u guys are looking at it now is dying.
No, not exactly. My post wasn't supposed to do that. Keith asked "What if..." I had a choice. I could answer him truthfully or politically. I opted for the whole truth.
If we don't have the money, we can't do it.
If we have the money, but not the DJs... we can't do it.
Right now, I'm concerned more about the DJs.
Remember, Doug was in charge of the gen stage this year and for personal reasons, he had to bow out. The problem is, we're late in the game and trying to regroup. Even before he left though, the funds were not coming in as quickly as we would like. The deadline right now is because we have to place the order for the tent.
Just an idea but instead of doing this big thing with tents and bbq stuff and all that why not just do a simple generator stage like last yr with less cost?
Well, that's kinda misleading. Last year we collected $1k for the generator. Jeremy paid out of his own pocket for the modifications to his van to pull it off. The generator stage last year, not counting the generator really cost about what we're asking for once you add in the cost of that van, the modifications, labor costs, design time, materials and the gas to get it there. Jeremy took a huge hit on that so that we could have that stage.
We'd use it again this year if...
1) Jeremy thought it could get him to the festival safely. He had some issues with it last year given how much gear he had to haul.
2) The van, while cool, in a way created a barrier. The kids didn't understand what we were doing there and didn't clue in that it was a stage. They didn't "Get" DJ culture... or Burning Man for that matter.
...that way it still advertises afterhours and we still have a stage.
We never had more than 5 people at the generator stage who were not already associate with Tastyfresh at any given time. Many people simply laughed, which was fine, but they didn't get it. We told people at the Barn each night to visit the Gen stage and they didn't do it.
Given this, I'm not sure how effective it was for advertising. I think the posters we printed did more. That however doesn't override the fun factor that we all had in DOING the stage last year. It was seriously a blast to be the only non-hardcore gen. stage at the fest.
I personally dont think the CD's are really gonna do much cause
A) u want them to advertise afterhours and in all likeliness if ppl do listen to them its not going to be during the cornerstone but after they leave &
This is why I want to splurge for the cardboard sleeves. They will be branded for Afterhours, have contact info for Tastyfresh, track listing ect... The branding will match the posters through out the fest... and match the logo in the printed schedule for the fest. It will become a part of a marketing blitz for what we do. And... you are correct that they may not listen to it until AFTER the festival. We WANT that to happen. It is an investment in NEXT year. And next year, we'd do volume 2.
B) think about how many other cd's and giveaways they will be getting.
That's the funny thing about cstone. The only way I come home with free CDs is if I personally know someone who is giving them out. Most people there are trying to SELL CDs. It's a HUGE place for trading and collecting old CDs. Every band is allowed to sell their music... as long as cstone gets their cut. Anybody can afford a booth, if they want it. They don't price gouge on that.
Freebies just don't happen as often as you would think at Cornerstone. In fact, the only free stuff I remember getting was from Andy T.
[ c) ]...whats gonna make our cd any better than the other stuff they are getting? the other cd's they are getting are probably of more interest to 90% of the ppl due to the fact that its a genre they primarily listen to.
Well... besides the fact it will be real music rather than crap
1) It will be well designed so it probably will get played
2) We pulled in an average of 600 people each night last year. That means 3 in 100 people from the festival checked out the festival. If ONLY those people got a CD and traveled in either a car or a church van, that one kid will want to listen to that cd on the way home... just b/c it's something different. That one CD will be heard by the other 3 -15 people in the vehicle. Those 600 CDs just got exposed to 2,400 - 9,000 people. That's a pretty good return on just 600 of the 1,000.
If they hear it and chuck it fine. That's advertising. We're looking at building for NEXT year and growing TF. A 30% return on a 1,000 CD investment means we have 333 new members of this site and next year, potentially 900 a night at afterhours. Think that's optimistic? Let's try 10%... 100 new members here and 700 a night next year at afterhours. It's still worth it. It's an investment of $3.33 to $10 per member gained.
Now i know that doing a stage depends on DJ's but u must have enough DJ's out of everyone there including AH dj's and all the TF members that will be there. I would love to come down and play but i cant afford to get down there just out of my own pocket.
The official rules for generator stages include a clause that says if you are booked to perform an official stage, you are not allowed to DJ at a generator stage. Cstone is paying to make their acts exclusive. Last year we bent that and should not have. This year, we need to avoid it.
Right now, we have 4 maybe 5 djs who can do meet that qualification booked. That leaves us with up to 11 slots to fill.
And... it is the out of pocket thing that is killing us. If we could really book people and get you in for at least the ticket, we would be asking not for $1,300, but more like $5,000. And here's the thing you need to understand about the culture at Cstone. We could book rock bands and charge them and have no shortage of bands willing to play our stage... at their expense... including travel, lodging, tickets and so on.
One generator stage is charging up to $200 for a 20 minute slot. I could go on, but I'll stop for now.
