"The best advice iiCould give you is to just do you." - E. Christopher 'Cocktails' Cornell (E Period LLC Productions, Host of S.M.A.R.T. Thursdays)
This is the advice iiGot after hosting my first "official" Creative Culture Collective at Jamaica Flava. I showed up to host my second show only to be informed that there was another event scheduled to take place there on that night. Though disappointed, iiWas prepared, and iiAsked if iiCould film some footage of myself playing music on the stage to post on the youtube page iiHad created for The CCCollective. I had planned to intercut the footage with applause reels to give the affect of actually having a live audience there. I asked my nephew to come along and film my performing a couple of songs, welcoming and thanking my imaginary audience for coming out to the show.
After we finished the mock show, a few of my supporters had shown up who weren't able to make it to the first show and some who were. We all sat down and ordered food, ate and talked about the show...
My first show was ramshackle at best...I felt very independent in spirit and didn't want to rely on anyone else to pay me, so iiDecided iiWould sell tickets to my show rather than take a percentage of bar earnings as the owner had suggested.
I had no startup money and iiWas charged to hand make all promotional material including tickets to the show, which iiWas planing to charge $1 for. The first thing iiDid was call up a few artists friends who iiKnew had some experience with these matters as well as some who didn't and told them all about the idea and the role iiWanted them to play. Most were interested, some were indifferent, and some had an unsure response.
My idea at the time was that there was something iiCouldn't do....iiCouldn't get people to come out to an open mic on a friday night, so iiMade the time of the show from 6-9pm to give people 'time' to go out to the club or other activities after the show. What iiDidn't realize that iiWasn't giving people 'time' to get off work & change clothes to get ready for the show!
iiQuickly learned that 6 o'clock was the tail end of rush hour traffic. iiEven got caught in it on the way to my own show. There was no reason for me to expect anyone else to be on time. Even with the odd timing, we were still able to pull together about 7 artists and 13 audience members. We had a show.
As iiWas 'charging' for tickets, iifelt no need to promote the bar or kitchen, which, in the beginning, put a strain on my relationship with the staff. iiWasn't trying to keep them from making money or working. iiJust did not understand, at that time, that my job there was to promote Jamaica Flava and all that it has to offer, including my show, the food & drinks, and as iiwould come to learn later, other events that 'Flava hosts.
Trying to follow 'Cocktails'' example, iiArranged the seats in a semi-awkward way, but one that fit the setting of the show iiWas putting on at the time...And we had a show...Artists performed, people clapped, and after being reminded by the waitress, iiMade an awkward reference to eating and drinking at the bar. After the show was over, we all sat at the bar and ate our wings and talked...
iiDidn't sell any tickets, iiDidn't make any money at the bar, but the show went on no matter what...
In those initial conversations with my experienced friends, iiSpoke with a social media consultant. Knowing that the demographic most likely to support my artistic expression was also very heavy on social media use, iiTalked with her about the best platforms and strategies to use to go about hosting an event like this, one that would seek to be more than an open mic, but a portal through which art is illuminated.
Esoteric, iKnow, but implementing this idea sparked not only changes in my financial and mental arena, but my spiritual connection as well. My greatest tools throughout this endeavor have been prayers, praise, & meditation.
The Social Media consultant told me to immediately start a facebook group with some kind of recognizable logo and invite the creative community to join. she also recommended a twitter page for micro-blogging updates on the show. Having already used youtube and blogspot to get the message out about my own music, iiCreated accounts for The CCCollective as well. From here iiWas able to communicate with people instantly about news and updates on CCC. Having a blog also opened up many ways for us to use our CCCreativity with music, videos, images, and the power of the internet to spread our message across many different platforms.
By the time we were ready to begin promotion for our next show, iiWas bored with the idea of the traditional flyer. With very little money to invest in graphic design and printing, iiThought of a way to get the word out creatively that would also push forward the idea of a CCCreative portal. I asked the artists who had participated in our first show (and a few who hadn't) if we could use a 1 minute to 1 minute 30 second clip of their music/poetry to put on a CD that we were going to give out as a flyer for the show.
Most artists agreed, and since we had music now, it made sense for us to have a bandcamp page from which peeople could easily download it. The format was a radioshow (WCCC Radio) presenting all these artists to The CCCollective audience. The 'radioflyer' was interlaced with audio iiRecorded with our mock audience advertising "Creative Culture Collective Friday nights at Jamaica Flava 2440 Wesley Chapel Rd."
I was able to burn 100 Cds at home and hand some out to friends who would be participating in the show, and those who had music on the CD, to hand out to friends and supporters as invitations. I also made a video of myself driving to Jamaica Flava from a nearby road to help people recognize nearby landmarks. This video was mixed with the video of our 'mock show' to create a short film "How iiGot to The Creative Culture Collective". It was our first youtube video and the first post on our blog. iiAlso used the music from the promotional CD as a soundtrack to the movie.
Through all of these and many other methods, iiWas able to reach one main objective, which was to make as many impressions as possible on the smallest group of people possible. This group of people iiSaw as my audience, and after a while iiBecame only concerned with them. Any person who was not in my 'audience' was not worth the time it took to convince them to join it when there were plenty of people who would already be interested.
The next show was a massive success compared to the first, and through our creative promotions, we were on our way to creating the portal of CCCreativity that has come to be known by many names, The CCCollective, The CCC, Creative Culture Collective, or simply CCC Fridays. iiLearned so much from putting together these first shows, but mostly iiLearned that iiHad to start where iiWas, maintain my vision, and be persistent.
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