Archives for May 2008

It’s our first meeting in January, and Lyndzapalooza (LP) is stuck in a bind.

We had thrown an event the third Saturday of every May for five years, and we already spread the word that people should expect a sixth edition. But, as we sadly informed the sales rep at our awesome potential location, we simply didn’t have enough lead-time to raise the cash or audience support to head out to a farm,

Even if we didn’t throw an event on a farm, we had to throw something. We couldn’t afford to forfeite our established festival date – we’d run the risk of losing whatever brand value and tradition we had built to-date.

We couldn’t just throw a Spring Mixer – it would seem like a letdown after last year’s huge spring event. At the same time, we couldn’t just go back to the same-old house party – not just because we actually had a business model now, but because we promised everyone (ourselves included) that we would evolve.

So: bigger than a mixer, smaller than a farm festival, and fundamentally different than our previous spring concerts.

What would that be, exactly?

We mulled and brainstormed, poked and prodded, but ultimately it was Lindsay who came up with the answer.

So, I was thinking, if we’re doing it in Yardley again we should have an actual stage – like, build a stage – so that it feels more like a real music festival. And then I thought, you could just walk out of the house and say, “hey, there’s a stage on my lawn!” So. why don’t we just call it “There’s a Stage on My Lawn!”?

Or, something like that.

As soon as the event was named we compiled our dream-list of artists and Dante started reaching out to them to see if they could play.

We nailed down two bands to anchor the lineup – the universally-adored Jesse Schurr Band and Radiohead v. Tool young rockers Just Like Me. From there we filled out the rest of the set with some local songwriters breaking through at local venues and radio (Bevin Caulfield and Irene Molloy), a handful of our favorite open mic acts (Da1 and Brian Flannagan), some emerging voices on the scene (Ben Guez and our founder Lindsay Wilhelmi), as well as some perennial favorites like our friends Jon Glaubitz and Geoff Ednie, the hypnotic hang drumming of Dante Bucci, and good ol’ harmony-laden Arcati Crisis – all tied together by the talents of improv comedy veteran Matt Lydon as emcee.

With a title and a lineup in place the other details came together with alarming efficiency, including a list of firsts for our event: official staff t-shirts; volunteers with specific assignments; full-day photo and video coverage; grilled food for sale; a constructed stage complete with scrim; a professional light hang; and independent vendors, including body-painting and airbrushing from our amazingly talented friend Jennifer Vessels.

Lindsay and I marveled to each other that we had six other pairs of hands to assist in our traditional duties, and how it freed us to go above and beyond what we had done in past years. Lindsay had the opportunity to design a beautifully detailed logo, and I spent weeks writing copy for our various websites and interviewing our artists.

But, well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. Just Like Me had a time restriction that kept them segregated to the first half of the schedule, and Jesse Schurr would be appearing sans band due to schedule conflicts. Suddenly it was anchors-away for our lineup, and we were afraid the lack of bands would be disappointing to our audience.

In past years this sort of thing would completely railroad us, but here we were prepared. We had already put out early feelers to two of my absolutely favorite local bands – Enter the Rooms and Old Man Cactus – and it took only a week to secure them both. In that same week Just Like Me eliminated their time crunch, leaving us with an intensely packed lineup of amazing music.

That brings us to present day. The festival kicks off in exactly 36-hours, and I am a wired blend of enthusiasm and anxiety. We’ve done five festivals, three open mics, and a mixer, but this is the first time the full force of our organization and branding is on the line.

Success isn’t too far from our grasp. We are featuring fourteen amazing artists, and even if they each only bring a handful of audience members we’ll have quite a crowd when you also include general fans, perennial guests, plus volunteers and directors.

It isn’t hard to imagine us topping a hundred attendees, and we’d all be thrilled to see that happen – thrilled for the exposure for our artists, thrilled for the support, and thrilled that we are that much closer to the farm festival we’re so eager to throw in 2009.

That’s the story of Lyndzapalooza’s There’s a Stage on My Lawn! Hopefully I’ve given you some insight into how much behind-the-scenes work has gone into our sixth annual festival, although I can’t approach detailing all of the personal effort that each of our directors and volunteers have put into the planning of the event.

If you’re in Philadelphia on Saturday you should come to our festival. You can purchase or reserve tickets on the web at TicketLeap, or just grab driving directions and pay at the door. The closest train station is the R3 Yardley stop, which is three miles from the festival. If you’re stuck for a ride please leave a comment and I’ll find a way to get you to us.

I’ll be back with one more post with links to the music of everyone on our lineup. But, if I’m going to be using power-tools in eight hours I should probably get some sleep.

Fall 2007. Lyndzapalooza (LP) had a survey of audience preferences, and we had a mission statement.

Both seemed like tremendous accomplishments as we toiled at them, but they were dwarfed by our next task: building a bigger, better music festival.

First we needed to find a place to host it.

As with many of our problems, it started out seeming relatively benign. We needed a big, open, outdoor space that could host an all day concert. Surely we could drive out of the city and ask any farm on the block to host us.

Right?

If you said yes, you would be exactly naive as I was last fall.

An outdoor concert venue needs to want to be visited by a bunch of music-loving strangers. It must have ample and accessible electricity, and either an existing stage infrastructure or a willingness to have one built.

Those are just the basics. What about lighting? Bathrooms? Parking? Security? Alcohol? Trash disposal?

I can’t take an iota of credit for this step in our development – it was lead by a phalanx of our most people-persons: Lindsay, Amanda and Jem, and my partner in Arcati Crisis, Gina.

First, They developed criteria for a venue – everything from price to sound ordinances, from capacity to garbage disposal. Next, they wrote a script for their outreach calls. Then they compiled an exhaustive list of possible venues, sometimes drawing from the experiences of other local festivals. Finally, they started making calls.

It was at this point we started to learn something special about music promotions at a local level – something that stood in complete opposition to our team of directors: there are very few Type A personalities doing this sort of thing. Not a lot of call-backers, list-makers, and go-getters, aside from the eight of us.

As my anecdotal example, I witnessed Gina conduct a 20-minute phone call with one venue, most of which was comprised of an argument about the ideal number of bands to feature on a bill for a one day festival, during which her counterpart on the other side of the line may have smoked an entire joint. Possibly two.

In the midst of lacking follow-ups and incomprehensible burnouts we finally found one farm where someone had their shit together and, as luck would have it, the farm itself was awesome. An appropriate size for our event, multiple stages, places to camp, and a snack shack. Lindsay put together an animated (literally) presentation to show all of the capabilities of the site.

Here we hit upon an issue.

Even in conversations with the burnouts we established early on that booking a farm would cost somewhere in the area of $2000, and that didn’t include any associated costs, like mixing equipment, lighting, and garbage disposal.

We were trying to evolve from a backyard party with under a hundred guests to a huge musical festival, but we’d have to charge 100 guests more than $30 a ticket just to break even. It’s a steal for eight or more hours of live music, but it’s a lot to ask after five years of being a house party with kegs and a donation jar.

As we mulled that over we managed to reach a decision point on another aspect of our evolution: we realized that we definitely wanted to become a non-profit organization.

We were eight people holding regular meetings, collecting dues, and planning events. We needed some sort of business model, and not one of us seemed to feel that a commercial one would fit. It was clear that we were in this for the love of music and the development of the community, and becoming recognized as a non-profit organization had the added bonuses of allowing us to collect donations in a legitimate, tax-exempt way, and minimizing our own personal legal and financial risks.

As if the farm price tag wasn’t daunting enough, the non-profit angle increased our need to fundraise … the state and federal process involves lots of fun paperwork and official seals, many of which cost money, and all of which benefit from oversight by actual legal counsel.

Our twin problems of raising cash and drumming up audience support intersected at a common solution – we needed to present more “off-season” events. They would help us build capital, and also reel in a regular (and hopefully increasing) audience.

Just like that we conceived of Winter Mixer, a low-key show with five bands, wine, and cheese. The goal? Spend hardly any money, present awesome bands, and reel in new audience members.

We planned the show stealthily in less than two months, an it was a great success. We made over and above the profits we were aiming for, which was cause for celebration in the short term. Yet, the farm was still outside of our reach, both budgetarily and promotionally.

What were we to do?

I have at least one more chapter of this story for you, which I hope I have the time to squeak out before I head to Yardley to help build our stage. Until then, you can purchase or reserve tickets on the web at TicketLeap. If you like independent songwriters and bands you’ll definitely love There’s a Stage on My Lawn!