Atlanta

[NebariNixar]

I don't have time right now to write a long description of the events in Atlanta, but I wanted to drop in (belatedly) long enough to say it was a great weekend. Though the turn-out at Tower Records was less than what we'd hoped for, the turn-out at The Chamber afterparty greatly exceeded our expectations. A rough head count, which I just now got from the club promoter, puts attendence at The Chamber Saturday night at at least eight hundred people, and the number may easily have been as high as 1000. He says it's the most successful event they've ever held there, excepting one New Year's Eve party. Gigi, Lani, and Paul were kept busy late into the night (and well into the morning), and signing and photographs continued well past the 3 a.m. cut-off time. The cast was very pleased with the turn-out and the venue, and it was about 4:30 before a taxi finally took them back to the hotel. Both Lani and Gigi are extremely optimistic about a 5th season, and were I think overjoyed at the support. I'll try to post more later and get some photos from the event up at Nebari.Net (http://www.nebari.net/rally.html) as soon as possible.

Quick thanks to Jason Feeman of The Secret Room and Greg Green of The Chamber for making the event possible, everyone out there that made donations to the "Gas Money Fund" after ADV turned us down, to Allison Littleton, to Jaime and Cat Jarrett and all the other Atlanta scapers, to Lyle and the other security guys who did such a wonderful job, and, most of all, to the cast members and to everyone who came out, paid their $5 or $10, and made the event a success. All of my fears that our work of the last week and a half would be in vain were for nothing.

Would someone please repost this to atf for me? Thanks.

Caitlin R. Kiernan
www.caitlin-r-kiernan.com

[||Scorpius||]

to know how much press exposure the events got?
Was there press at the signing? at the rally? at the party?
Does anyone have copies of the articles / TV coverage? I'd love to see those!
Were there radio interviews, and if so, do you have the transcripts?

Thanks
||S||

[NebariNixar]

The truth is that we had virtually no press coverage at any of the events in Atlanta, so far as I know (and I think I probably wouldn't have missed it). A couple of interviews for online zines, but not much else. Lani and I were interviewed by someone at The Chamber, but I was never told who he was representing. Regardless, I still hold that our overall strategy was sound. We got the people. We got the numbers. It appears that the persons responsible for making sure the press were aware of us (beyond writing one PR, I wasn't handling press; I worked primarily on the afterparty) may have failed to do so. I don't want to start pointing fingers and I won't name names, but I do think it's the most likely explanation at this point. It is, of course, unfortunate, as my hope, my primary hope, was that the numbers of people we attracted would produce press coverage that would net exposure and ultimately new viewers. But if press contacts aren't made and aggressively followed-up, day after day, we shouldn't be too surprised when we don't get coverage. So, learn from our mistakes.

Of course, if I'm entirely mistaken, and we show up on CNN in the next day or so, I'll gladly eat crow.

I'm hoping that more press coverage comes of the Orlando appearance tomorrow.

Caitlin R. Kiernan
www.caitlin-r-kiernan.com

[Tiriel]

Did you have someone with a video-camera at any of the gatherings? I'm sure Fox would be all over that :D

Tiriel :eek:

[||Scorpius||]

There was no media coverage??
Huh?
I hope this is not a rude awakening, and I don't mean to lay blame anywhere, but I thought getting a lot of publicity was the whole point of spending -- what was it? -- 10,000 American Samoleans to bring the cast members here. That much was spent...or so I've heard...and not one shred of press coverage was garnered? That is terribly disappointing, if not downright tragic.

Now, the 800 ppl at the party does sound like a very good turn-out. Were they Farscape fans? Or were they mainly Chamber regulars who would probably turn out en masse for any big event the place hosted?

I'm curious; there was a 5-10$ cover to get in, right? Where did those proceeds go? Did they go to Gigi, Paul, and Lani?
Say half got in on the 5$ ticket, half got in on the full price.
400 at 5$ a head = that's 2000$. 400 at 10 is 4000$. That's 8,000 bucks (possibly more, I don't know how the ticket sales were divided).
Who got it? I heard the venue was donated, and the cast had deferred their fees for this (aside from what they made off autographs).

It does not seem to me that the event even broke even...especially if you do not count hotel rooms, transportation, and food expenses.

Was it a success? I'm sure it was a fun party for those involved...
but did it really help save the show beyond putting a few $$ in the pockets of the cast members? And no, I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I do not at all begrudge them that. I don't begrudge the fans a chance to party with them either. But 10,000 donated dollars...for a party? I must ask, since no one else seems to be: was that an effective way to use the money that was entrusted for the purpose of getting publicity and making a big splash with the media?

I have to consider that 800 people is a lot fewer people than the number who could have been made aware of the campaign by even one small TV news spot or newspaper article...or even one small ad....

I"m very glad the cast was upbeat and hopeful though. That is very good news. :)

How many people were at the Atlanta rally? Did the cast go? I have not found a report on the rally anywhere yet.

Thanks for your time,
||S||

[WhiteLight]

Everything else aside, if the cast are upbeat and optimistic...so am I!

Thanks for the report!

[Vampgrrl]

To my knowledge the Chamber was near capacity. IT was damn crowded and many I would think were Scapers, when Lani took to the stage it was LOUD.
Do not worry over PR too much, if and when we win this it will mostly be because of word of mouth.
Don't slam the event, it was a damn good time and alot of people were there.

[||Scorpius||]

Did I slam the event?
No.
What I'm questioning are the uses to which donated funds were put, and how effective those funds were in the cause of "saving the show".
And yes, I "dare" to question it. It is my right as a Scaper and as a donator to the cause of saving the show to question what is done with donated money.

Don't worry about PR? It seems to me that the focus of about 80% -- more like 90% - of fan efforts to save the show to date have centered around media attention. DK himself suggested that would be the best way to keep interest alive. PR means life or death in the entertainment industry.

Now, I wouldn't think of bashing your event, Vampgrrl. All I ask is that you consider "at what cost did you lot party"?
I'm glad you all had a wonderful time and partied your brains out. But please don't expect the majority of Scaperdom to be eternally grateful that you got your chance to do so. Don't expect Scapers to never dare question how events and funds were handled. Scapers made it possible. They deserve an accounting.

Believe me when I say, it will errode donator confidence to see their hard-earned credit-pledges being used so the fortunate few can party....if that's all that's being done with the money.

We should all take responsibility for our mistakes, as well as learn from them.

10,000 dollars is a very expensive mistake, especially when that represents, I believe, approximately one fourth the entire funds raised to Save Farscape to date.

Was having a party for 800 people, many of whom already were Scapers and aware of the campaign, the best use of that much money, when there was NO media coverage? Some people in Atlanta have been reached. That's hardly equal to one short CNN news spot, one radio interview, or one magazine article or ad.

[Vampgrrl]

Well all I know was Reney San Migel was supposed to be there from CNN but he wasn;t supposed to be going with a camera crew..you have to understand the nature of the event. It was good but there was alot of what might be understood to be "very non family nature" which may or may not have scared off normal press I dont know. I also know it was put together VERY quickly. Plus the cast that came are going to Orlando and a few other events, so it wasn't just for that party....I think everyone is doing a good job. We aren't perfect but most of us have lives outside of Farscape (and jobs) too.

[NebariNixar]

Understand, those of us who spent the last two weeks working to make the events in Atlanta happen can be defensive. But that's not to say that mistakes weren't made, or that there shouldn't be an accounting. There were mistakes, largely relating to trusting particular people with particular jobs they weren't, in hindsight, prepared to handle. But, as Vampgrrl says, we all have lives beyond Farscape and none of us were professional fundraisers or promoters or activists or PR people.

I'm not sure where the $10,000 figure is coming from. I think, in point of fact, that we raised something a lot closer to $8,000. And a lot of us connected with the Atlanta event are considerably in debt from our own contributions.

The crowd at The Chamber was mixed - scapers, general sf fans, and Chamber regulars. We had more than twice a normal Saturday night's attendence. And though use of the chamber was "donated," the agreement was that the proceeds from the door and the bar would go back to the club. In return, we got the space, staff, security, lots of free advertising, part of the cast's hotel expense, etc. The Creative Loafing ad alone, paid for by The Chamber, reached millions of people. It gave us a great venue, something I never thought would happen. Just try to book an event into a decent venue in Atlanta on a Saturday night with barely two week's notice!

As for the accounting, yes, there should be an accounting, but I doubt it will happen until this thing's over and it's not. A small number of people actually scheduled these events, hardly a half dozen of us, and the people with all the accounting info. are still on the road with the cast. I can give no details about the fund, as I never handled the money and was never given specific figures.

In my original post, I admitted that we made mistakes with Atlanta. I continue to admit this. From the start, I trusted someone with the job of PR liason who told me everything was being taken care of, and I was so busy handling other matters I didn't have time to check and re-check everything I was told. And I had no real reason to think I should. We were supposed to be functioning as a team. Those of us who did our jobs got results. Those of us who didn't are the reason we didn't get all the results we needed, including PR (and yes, I agree it's tragic there wasn't more).

But there's still time to take advantage of the cast's presence in the states before they head back and some of us are still trying to do this (I spent part of the day trying to schedule a radio interview). The party at The Chamber was only part of the reason the money was raised (though it's certainly the most successful part so far, and the part that's gotten us the most flak from the start). There's still the Orlando signing, and appearances when the cast members return to Georgia later this week.

I don't mind answering questions, and I'll give the answers, as long as I know them. But I also think that there are people who need to understand that some of us are very touchy about what happened with the press. I, for one, spent much of Friday and Saturday being furious about it and trying to rectify the situation. But at the last minute, there was only so much to be done.

Video was taken at the club. I don't know if any has been passed along to Fox.

As I've said elsewhere, there was no traditional "rally" in Atlanta. There was the Tower Records signing, canvassing at specific points on Saturday, and then the afterparty at The Chamber. Combined, I considered them the "rally," though it's more accurate to refer to them as events.

Caitlin R. Kiernan
www.caitlin-r-kiernan.com

[DangerWillRobinson]

Lets face it, the only way to get people in mass to an event is to have a party/event. Had the person in charge of media had done there job correctly and had gotten the media attention we desired nobody would be complaining. The Chamber event wasn't the weak link, it was the lack of one person to follow up on getting the media interested and there at the event, making a successful event less so.

My hat is off to everyone who did there best to make this happen in such a short time. Especially to NN who forked over one thousand dollars to cover other costs.

Hopefully next time we will have more time to plan and the true costs can be given out well in advance so that people will know what is needed to get the job done.

P.S. I don't know why ADV couldn't have given something to the cause. I don't by there budget constraint story. It is in there best interest also to keep Farscape alive.

[Tiriel]

(((Caitlin)))

I would like to very much thank you for your candid response! This is the first clear answer I have found to the entire thing :)
I feel for you, it must be extremely frustration to have spent not only money but also a lot of time and energy on this and then see the hard earned benefits only materialize partially, because just one person wasn't up to the task :( And I can even understand how someone might get overwhelmed with what was happening and at the speed it was (or wasn't) happening.
The one thing I'm afraid of is that Scorpius might be quite right and this will shake "investor" confidence for future endeavors...
Kudos to everyone who did their job and worked so hard to make it happen :) I only wish we would have taken the time to plan this through more thoroughly and get all our bases covered.

I'm looking forward to seeing the detailed report on what exactly happened once everybody has caught their breath :) Thanks again :)

Love and Peace and Calm :)

Tiriel :eek:

[etana]

Whether this shakes funder confidence or not I think we should remind ourselves--and any other naysayers who might be listening--that we're all pretty new at this... I think it's fairly safe to say none of us have ever attempted to organize an international volunteer campaign before... I went to my first Webmaster Association meeting yesterday and it blew my mind that the time for the meeting came in with five timezones--pick yours and sign in. It's the little details like that that just astound me and fill me with this sense of awe in what we are doing.


This week "Eat Me" aired on the local station and I saw it for the first time. I had been warned by various reviews and spoilers that it was a 'bad' episode but I found when it was over that I was just shaking my head... geezus, even Farscape's BAD episodes are great to watch.

And that's how I kind of see the campaign... even things we might perceive as "failures" are astonishing and wild and inspirational. You guys raised an insane amount of money in a very short amount of time to bring three actors in from *Australia*... you hosted a party of 800 people... you raised awareness among fans and non-fans of the show--who I have no doubt are sitting at home somewhere shaking their heads in awe going "How the hell did those 'Scapers pull that off?" Sure, maybe there were mistakes and things didn't go as perfectly as we might have hoped, but let's take a cue from our favourite show and realize there will be mistakes when you push the envelope... do more than any fan group has ever attempted before (coordinated rallies on 5 continents anyone?)...

We are doing fantastic things right now--learn from the mistakes but don't let them drag us down.

[Hmpf]

Originally posted by DangerWillRobinson
Lets face it, the only way to get people in mass to an event is to have a party/event.


Yep, parties are a good way to spread the word, IMO. I think we need more parties, especially at universities etc.

How about a sort of global party weekend? We wouldn't even need stars for that... People can dress up as Peacekeepers, paint themselves blue (http://www.anduranova.net/largentreffenimages/aax.sized.jpg)... it would be a way to make people curious about FS, I think.

And if we schedule this with some time for planning, say, in late November or early December (December may be even better than November) we might be able to throw a few really big parties, and if we make this an international effort, and contact the media properly and in time, we might be able to actually get publicity for it. I think it's a viable way to raise the general FS awareness.

[Tiriel]

Hmpf: LOL! Whoever said Germans aren't party-animals!!! :D :D :D

Tiriel :eek:

[Hmpf]

Originally posted by Tiriel
Hmpf: LOL! Whoever said Germans aren't party-animals!!! :D :D :D

Tiriel :eek:

Only for a good cause, Tiriel! Only for a good cause... ;-)

But I'm pretty serious about this party idea. I really think it's a way to attract attention and a potential audience for FS.