Hello folks,
First of all, thanks for taking up Allgorhythms organization responsibilities. After so many days I finally got time to sit and make a list of things that we will need to take care of for the event.
This list might is not exhaustive, but at least good enough to give you all head start. As each of you proceeds with preparation for this year’s show and/or has already worked for last 2 editions, you will have some useful inputs to the list too, so feel free. I’m putting down the entire process with approximate timeline so that it can go in the database for future reference.
Allgorhythms to dos:
For show in September:
March/April: We are contacted by Allgorhythms that they want to perform for Asha (like previous years). Various venue options are discussed from acoustic/financial/practical standpoints. This year we also tried Meany hall at the campus, but turned out way too expensive for show of this genre (unless of course we could arrange for a sponsorship of over 10K$...which even then I would say is not worth the amount. No doubt Meany hall is superior for performances, but 10K$ for it is way too steep.)
Asha Seattle is registered as a student organization at UW, because of which we can avail the on campus rates for venues (Meany hall is excluded from the on campus rate). Hence, in spite of everything, in the end we’ve stuck to Kane Hall for the past 3 years.
Along with the venue, the other consideration is the date of the show. In September, UW Huskies have their football season and every alternate Saturday there is a home game. During the home games, all the parking spots on campus are reserved by the school (this reservation overrides all other event parking reservations). Hence, it is not a good idea to coincide the show with huskies game. In 2003, when we did have the show on the same day as the game, because of no other option available, we had couple of vandalism incidents with the cars parked for Allgorhythms.
Once the date and venue is decided, the next step is to go to the Event reservations and reserve the venue. Payment is not expected immediately, but there are certain deadlines which need to be followed. I will mention them in chronological order below.
July: This is the time when we start with preparation for publicity. This involves working with initial designs of fliers. All these years, Shri Borde from Allgorhythms has been taking the charge for fliers and other publicity material. He has been getting only feedback from Asha volunteers about the write up, logo, colors and other design considerations. In future, if we get another volunteer (other than Anupa who already gets taxed year around with designing of our newsletters, other event fliers, etc.) we should definitely relieve Shri Borde of this task. It takes 2-3 weeks till the final design of flier is ready to go for printing. This usually happens by August first week.
Other tasks on our part which should get started by July are getting an Asha team ready for the event with volunteers assigned for:
Publicity
Publicity material designing
Primary contact between the band and Asha
Sponsorship
Food
Venue in-charge (UW student)
Website and online ticketing
August: (from here on, the break up will be in smaller timescale)
By first week of August, we must have following action items ready:
· Fliers for circulation
· Advertisements should be sent to all local Indian portals
o Emails should be sent out to all Indian organizations and aliases with our e-flier
· The website linked, online ticketing set up
· A cover letter ready to start approaching sponsors
o Sponsorship team contacting all possible avenues for getting sponsorship
· Food volunteers enquiring about various options from caterers and restaurants
· Venue in-charge should get in touch with event reservations, submit the agreement and make the prepayment (The agreement has to be submitted 5 weeks before the event and the prepayment made one month before the event)
Second week of August:
· Fliers should be posted on all Microsoft locations, the large posters at all Indian restaurants
· Tickets should be printed and ready for sales
· Some follow up on sponsorship, at least have couple of leads for the same
· Food volunteers should narrow down to 1-2 caterers and start negotiations with them. It is important the menu and caterer are decided in order to get the temporary food permit from E&HS in time
· The RUUF (request for use of university facilities) should be sent for approval to the student activities office (SAO)
Third week of August:
· From 3 weekends before the show, Asha should start selling tickets at Mayuri, by setting up booth on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, distributing pamphlets and spreading the word. We should have a volunteer teams of at least 15 people to share this responsibility (3 days x 3 weekends x 2 volunteers)
· Some ticket sales must take place through our online ticketing
· Sponsors must be available, and information about them forwarded to Anupa, so that she can start working on the program brochure
· For food, everything on the menu should be fixed
· An email should be sent out by this time on Asha Seattle to call for volunteers for the day of event responsibilities
· The RUUF, food permit, fund-raiser form should have been filled and submitted to SAO, event reservations and E&HS by now (at the most 3 weeks before the show, all these formalities should be complete)
Fourth week of August/first week of September:
· The publicity team should make sure nothing’s left uncovered
· Food should be all taken care of
· The weekend booths at Mayuri should become more aggressive
· Email reminders should be sent to all other Indian organizations and aliases
· The brochure with information about the event, Asha, Allgorhythms beand members, sponsors, caterers should be ready
· A memento as token of appreciation to the band members
· We should decide if we need to play Asha ad or talk about Asha at the event, and the information of this should be conveyed to Allgorhytms (timeslot has to be assigned)
Couple of days before the event:
· Should take the head count of online and paper ticket sales
· Volunteer task list should be ready with each volunteer assigned tasks for the day of the event
o Allgorhythms should be contacted to get an estimate of how many volunteers they would need for setting up/taking out and loading/unloading their equipments
o The task list should be sent out to Asha Seattle volunteers
· Advanced payments for food (complete or part) should be done and should get final confirmation from the caterer to avoid any miscommunication
· A check on inventory for Asha tea and merchandise should be made
· Signboards for directions, parking, restrooms, water, tea, tickets, will call, etc. should be prepared
D-day:
· The hall is usually reserved from 11 am/noon. First set of volunteers are required at this time to unload the equipments and also setting them up for the band. Usually 5-6 volunteers are required for this job, and the work takes 2-3 hours.
· From 4 pm, all the other volunteers should arrive
o Tea stall, merchandise booth should be set up
o Ticket windows should be put up (both will call and current tickets)
· If we are showing Asha ads, the projector needs to be tested
· Food team should make sure food reaches on time
· From 5 pm, audience starts coming, depending if the band needs more time for practicing/tuning up, ushers should handle the audience
· Once the show starts, things fall in place, only food, ticket, merchandise and ushering needs to be taken care of
· Intermission will require lot more volunteers at the food stalls
· Post show, the hall needs to be cleaned up of empty plates, brochures, tickets, etc.
· The band needs to be helped to take their equipment out and loaded back in their vehicles
· Make a note of time when we finally leave the hall premise
· PARTY!!!