Plan B
Monday, 14th May 2007Posted under: struggles ,
Or more accurately, plan A.1. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, look before you leap. Or more succinctly, don’t jump with a basket full of eggs, I get the message.
I had a chance to redeem myself with plan A.1, the festival circuit. You can’t go wrong with a crowd of happy pissed and stoned people, rule of thumb…..
The first Festival I set up at was the Major’s Creek Folk Festival in November 2005. Small, intimate, and when the fog rolls in late at night it gives the place a special magic you just can’t find anywhere else. I set up as a stall, so I had to pay stall fees. It was easier to get into the festival that way, relying on being accepted as an artist was too unreliable, my artistic product too unusual, and considering I would be operating my Dome around 14 or 15 hours a day it made more economic sense to get people to pay rather than accept a flat artists fee. Entry fee was not a lot, less than an ice cream, same as outside Questacon. It was a risk, maybe nobody would take the plunge into my dark womb and I would just end up as a financial abortion, but my assessment of the festival atmosphere was pretty accurate and lots of people came. In fact the response was great, I had many, many returning punters. Often I was told it was the most unusual and original item of the festival, a comment repeated at every festival I went to subsequently.
In particular I attracted a cohort of kids who got addicted to my cosy digital wash cycle, endlessly trying to negotiate to get in for free. Pleading kids……god! how hard is that.
I met a fellow, Mike Sarroff, who taught digital media studies at Crow’s Nest Tafe in
So I came away from a tiny festival in the middle of no where on the biggest high. It was a well needed affirmation.
After Majors Creek came the Illawara Folk Festival, where I was adopted by the cutest little 11 year old girl who wanted to see my animation over and over again. I made a deal with her, every person she encouraged to come through my dome, she could join them and watch it for free. I had my own little spruiker, she did a fabulous job. Then came Cobargo Folk Festival and the National Folk Festival in April. Each was a success. The response from people was overwhelmingly positive. Interestingly though, there were still a large proportion of people who, because they couldn't smell, touch or see my product, were unwilling to part with the token amount it cost to enter my Dome.
Regardless, my ambition was to set up at the Woodford Folk Festival just north of
But how do I get invited to participate? Stall fees were too high for me to afford and I had missed the closing date for artists.
Ambition….. ingenious in its method, determined in its execution…....
My research had revealed to me that in August 2006, Folk Alliance