Well Cornerstone 05 has come and gone. My eyes are still tired. I have come to find that I am getting too old to only get 2 hours of sleep a night. I have been asked to write a wrap up of the Cornerstone 05 Dance Club from the organizer point of view. This wrap up will include general thoughts, highlights, lowlights, and what the future holds.

Well Cornerstone 05 has come and gone. My eyes are still tired. I have come to find that I am getting too old to only get 2 hours of sleep a night. I have been asked to write a wrap up of the Cornerstone 05 Dance Club from the organizer point of view. This wrap up will include general thoughts, highlights, lowlights, and what the future holds.

A Brief Introduction

First I want to let everyone know where I am coming from. I found Christ (or he found me) just before getting involved with The Underground. Prior to that, my life involved a lot of bar/club hopping, alcohol, and general stupidity for many years. It is a miracle that my wife and I were still married at that point. My wife and I have been involved in The Underground since its inception 7 years ago. The Underground is a Christian night club in Cincinnati, Ohio. I have been the director, booking agent, stage manager, sound guy, and just about any thing else that needed to be done. I have booked in excess of around 600 performances in the last 6 years. I stumbled on the CS Dance Club for the first time at Cornerstone ‘01. I came in and lost myself in the music and before I knew it had found the darkest corner with the most fog so that people wouldn’t have to be exposed to my dancing. Soon after that, I met Cindy Tucker who schooled me in the dance scene and we began doing Club Nights. Then we both got schooled on Rave events together and took as shot at throwing a few parties and exposing the local rave scene to some Christian artists. In ‘03 I approached Cornerstone about doing the lighting in the Club because I had heard the people who had handled it in the past would not be doing it that year. In late ‘04 while talking to the Cornerstone Fest Director about unrelated issues, I found out that the previous Dance Club organizers would not be returning for ‘05. I saw that things were not looking good for the Club, so, I pursued booking and stage-managing the venue. I have never been in the “dance scene” per say, however, over the last few years, I have developed somewhat of a passion to help the scene in any way that I can. In my opinion, it is one of the last overlooked genres of Christian music.

Now on to Cornerstone ‘05

In general things in the Club went off without a hitch once the festival started. Things came together very well. Most technical issues experienced in the past were not there. There were a few issues with the sound in the Club some were brought on by the artists, but some had to do with the fact that the providers had only ever done sound for bands before. I don’t know if these kinds of issues for this type of event will ever go away. In the future, I would like to see a couple of stacks of speakers in the back of the Club as well to fill the space better.

Highlights of the Cornerstone 05 Dance Club or things that worked from an organizers perspective start off with DJ Race’s visuals as well as his and his team’s professionalism in assuming all responsibilities for the visual aspects of things. They took the ball and ran with it. I thought they added a ton to the experience of the club.

It was also amazing to meet so many Tastyfreshers. It really felt in some respects like the “community” pulled together around this event.

From an organizers standpoint I have to mention Greg Reynolds (DJ Glow) he was a huge help in flyering, etc. And Victor Minetola (Hypostatic), was a huge help with putting things like the ambient night together. He was also a huge encouragement and always had a smile. They were both a pleasure to have around.

Lowlights of the Cornerstone 05 Dance Club from an organizers perspective would have to include the lack of commitment on the part of artists. I was quite shocked at the cancellations that were received, and some quite late in the game after Cornerstone had already printed 100,000 programs with the artists name listed. Excuses were given, but in the end, a commitment was made and from the organizers standpoint every attempt should have been made to honor the commitment. While discussing this with someone they made the comment to me “I’m sure this happens all the time with bands at a festival”. My response to this is I am sure it does as well, however, a festival cannot live without the bands, in this day and age they certainly can live without the dance genre, which has not proved its value in the festival circuit. When this genre is viewed as more of a pain than it is worth the festival will simply do it away with. In my humble opinion, for this genre to advance in general, good business sense must be used by the artists and promoters, must be convinced of the value of the genre from an organizational and income standpoint. My intention this year was to make this venue painless to the organizers. Not only that, but to help to prove its value. I definitely failed in the first part of this endeavor. The second part remains to be seen.

Second part of the lowlights of Cornerstone 05 would definitely be the fact that it seems that in the dance scene the old 20/80 rule still applies. 20% of the people are doing 80% of the work. There were a few people who dove in and wanted to make this event the best it has ever been by whatever means necessary. There was big talk on the boards prior to the event about promotions, etc. We printed up 10,000 full color flyers for the event. On the last day there were probably in excess of 6,000 flyers still left. I had 1 artist actually refuse to pass out flyers, which absolutely floored me. It seems that a lot of people in the scene like to complain about the state of the dance scene and the lack of respect for the genre, but when it comes to doing a bit of legwork, or keeping commitments to help correct this … (sound of crickets).

Looking Ahead

What does the future hold? I really don’t know. I think I would like to give another year a shot. Things I would like to see happen or a To Do List if you will.

• A DJ right before the headliner on main stage on one of the big nights.
• DJs in some way in the line up every night at main stage.
• The Dance Club moved into a tent on the main drag, or at least the layout of the food court changed so that the Dance Club isn’t closed off like it is not a part of the festival.
  

I hope everyone had a good time at the event, and would love to hear feedback or input on how to improve on the future. I am not a professional by any means at any of this, just someone that God has put in the right place at the right time on some things.

Peace,
Chris Human
The Underground <><
www.theug.com