Post
by The CO » Wed Jan 26, 2011 11:35 am
I have a hard time giving a crap about the people & threads that show up every year like this. If you (the royal you, addressing the complainers) have not had at least a tiny bit of experience in running & managing any sort of festival, you don't have much of a valid opinion to me.
I run a small (150-250 max. attendance) 3-day event in Oregon. We're entering our twelfth year, and we might have raise our ticket prices from $30 to $35 this year. And, I'm sure that people are going to bitch about it, just like they did in years past when had to do the same thing.
People complained when it was free and they had to use a slit trench to shit in. So we rented JoTS and had to charge a little $$. They complained about not having electricity, so we rented and purchased generators and electrical distribution gear & had to charge a little more $$.
We got large enough that we could no longer squat on public land; the forest service knew about us (some of them came to the event for fun) & said we had to get permits. Permits for public land & rental of private land cost money, and in turn lead to more cost for things like insurance, and emergency response plans, and having medics on sight for emergencies. So the ticket price goes up a little more. And some people bitch about it and accuse the organizers of lining their pockets with cash, all while blissfully unaware of what it really takes to make an event happen.
We (royal we, people that manage events large and small) do our best to balance all of that and still manage to put the event on. Some of the time, we manage to make a profit. Most of the time, we do it for no financial compensation of our own, just because we want to see the event continue. Other times, we lose money from our pockets.
So every time a thread shows up like this, I have just sit back and laugh & laugh. Complain away. If the members of the board of the BOrg keep managing to run the event in a way that makes me want to go, I'm gonna keep on attending & not give a tinkers damn how they spend money. If they start running it in a way I don't like, I'll stop going.
(And I pissed in the kool-aid while no one was looking)
**Edit**
I sound like an asshole up there. I am, but that's beside the point. I should have included something along these lines:
If you don't like the way any event (including BM) is run, you have the power to change it. You have to get involved, sometimes deeply involved with the management. The great thing is, you can do this. Most festivals will welcome the opportunity to get more dedicated people involved in the core group. It allows for distribution of the work load, making everyones job a little easier.
Events that don't welcome new voices don't last. I'm currently working on taking our little event and forming an LLC for it, for the same kind of reasons the Borg (and other events) did. Part of that will be the creation of a board of directors, and if their decision is to oust me as management for the good of the event, so be it. Festivals have to evolve, but they can only do so through the effort of the people that want to see them evolve.
M*A*S*H 4207th: An army of fun.
I don't care what the borg says: feather-wearers will NOT be served in Rosie's Bar.
When I ask how many burns, I mean at BRC.
