Ventura Music Week kick off party

Ventura Music Week (VMW) was put on haphazardly by the City of Ventura the past couple of years.   That’s not a derogatory comment about the City, but rather, a statement of fact.  It wasn’t done properly because they didn’t have a staff and resources backing it up.  They had one individual trying to spearhead it.  Very little support was given.  It was hard work and the end result didn’t get anyone looking forward to the following year.  Eric, our hats go off to you for your efforts.  Eric has since left the City and we miss him dearly.

This year, Peter Brown in Economic Development put out feelers to see if community members would want to take over .  So Kevin Clerici of Downtown Ventura Organization, Kat Merrick of Totally Local VC, David Comden of the VC Reporter came together to see if they could pull it off as a group under the limited guidance and small funding by the City.  Sam Benner of Benner Marketing was invited as his expertise in website design would be valuable, and Gary Stewart of Four Brix Winery had a graphic design background plus he could rally some of the wineries to participate.  I was the last to be invited to the table as a representative of VenturaRocks.com.

There were seven of us working to pull of Ventura Music Week 2013.  No one was being paid.  This was solely a volunteer effort to see this through.

There were a number of meetings before I came on board and there were a number of decisions made that I was not a part of including changing the dates so that VMW aligned with Cash Fest (Roadshow Revival a Tribute to the Music of Johnny Cash).  Another decision made was having highlighted events listed on posters.

The changing of the dates affected few, but those it did, it was a very big deal.  VC Buzz had scheduled (actually rescheduled) their Ventura County Music Awards to align with VMW.  I’m sure they were counting on the momentum of VMW to generate additional interest in their event.  That was unfortunate, but I believe it was done with all the best intentions for VMW itself so there was a major anchor event (Cash Fest).

As for the highlighted events listed on posters, again I believe it was done with the best of intentions so that the venues would work hard on getting extraordinary talent for at least one of the evenings.  If they didn’t, then it would be like any other week in Ventura (which is pretty awesome).   So the group was hoping to inspire highlighted events which would be rewarded with placement on posters and on the VMW website.  The problem?  Venues don’t want to inspire their patrons to go to someone else’s event!    So many of the venues not only didn’t place the posters on their windows, but they verbally complained, and one of them originally refused to pay the agreed fee of $100 to participate.

I still believe the highlighted events is a great idea, but separate posters need to be designed for venues.  Venue posters should state how they are an official VMW venue, and generic info on VMW itself.  Highlighted event posters should be distributed throughout the Ventura county, Santa Barbara county, the Valley and the City of Los Angeles.   They need to what we have to offer so they would want to come to Ventura to hear our music and support VMW.

So you live and learn.

Also, the work load was not distributed evenly.  After the intitial first few meetings, there was never another meeting where all parties participated.  I would say that Kat pulled off at least 50% of the work, I did at least 30, maybe more and the rest was distributed by the remaining members.

Yes Sam created the website from a WordPress template.  And yes Gary created amazing artwork for us and did all the promo for us. David arranged for all the media buys and Kevin helped with Treasury functions and some networking.

But the majority of the work fell on Kat’s shoulders.

My 30-35% including uploading venue information for the VMW weeksite and Facebook page, running around trying to sign up the venues, distributing products to the venues, party set up and tear down, running errands, and then showing up each and every night during the ten nights where I took pictures, and uploaded them at the end of the night, sometimes after 1:00 in the morning.    VMW Facebook page was posted to dozens of times during every day with the events for all the venues, plus a calendar listing for that day.  These I shared on our VenturaRocks.com FB page as well.

The uploading of venue information sounds easily enough, but there were photos to hunt down, upload resize, create posters for, and post for each event for each venue.  We had 100 bands.  30 venues.  10 tens.  1 city.    There was a lot to process just for the web presence.  Plus there were always changes to schedules, and venues were not always available to answer questions or help with the data.  They are busy too after all trying to make a living!

And again, keep in mind, as much work as I personally put into VMW, Kat did even more running around having meetings and getting this thing done.  Crazy, no?

Trying to get venues to sign up was a real interesting exercise.  As VenturaRocks.com, I haven’t had to really work with the venues.  We just helped them (whether they liked it or not.  The Golden China wasn’t even aware of us…Really?  After 4 years guys?).  But now with VMW, we were asking them to participate and to pay $100 to become an official venue.  It wasn’t pretty for some.  There were a few that didn’t participate and it blew my mind!  One of them didn’t pay and the DVO stepped up to grant the money for them…and still they ended up calling it MY VENUE Music Week instead of Ventura Music Week on their personal promo.

And then there were certain musicians who didn’t make it easy on me as well.  They weren’t happy with a photograph, or I had to get their authorization to help promote their gigs.  OUT-FUCKIN’-LANDISH, no?

So I learned that some personalities make doing such an event more of a challenge.  For me, the bottom line is to help make this City prosperous for all.  To make Ventura known as a music destination where people come and spend money in our venues supporting music and our artists and musicians.

For some of the venues, they got it.  For others, they had tunnel vision and it was not about the group effort for our town, but about what was in it for them.    If the town wins and we pull this off, then they win.

We kicked off VMW with an official party at the W Gallery at the corner of California and Main in downtown Ventura.  The VIP portion of the evening saw venue owners, some musicians, key players and councilman Carl Morehouse as well as Mayor Mike Tracy in attendance.  The musicians who played were amazing.  Dan Grimm kicked off the night, then Spencer the Gardener, old school favorites Raging Arb and the Redheads, then the McEuen Brothers.  It was a success and we have the pictures to prove it!

For ten nights we helped to promote Venture Music Week.  Some of the highlights included a screening of Dave Grohl’s film, Sound City: Real to Reel, a visional arts exhibit at the Museusm of Ventura County, a full day all ages concert at Plaza Park called Rock Picnic which included sets by 8Stops7, Army of Freshmen and Rubberneck Lions.  Zoey’s pulled out the stops by having shows which included a show with surfer turned recording artist, Timmy Curran.

It was a great 10 days.  We pulled it off!!!

After all was said and done, I sat down in Peter Brown’s office at City Hall for a short debriefing.  I was tired to be sure, but satisfied until he asked me, “What’s in it for you?”

Stumped, I asked myself, “Jesus,  can’t I just help?”

But now I’ve had time to think about it, and how much work was involved, and how I took seven of my own vacation days to devote to VMW, and how I used my own resources and how I wasn’t able to generate income during those days doing my own website work.  And I have to re-evaluate, “What is in it for me?”

Next year we want to bump this up ten-fold.  We’re going to start working on it 10 months in advance getting sponsorships lined up.  We want to shut down Main Street and have a free concert with a national touring act to kick off the week.  It’s going to be amazing!

But at what personal cost?  How much am I willing to invest in this town for nothing in return?

It’s something I’m going to try not to dwell on as we gear up for 2014.

(See VenturaRocks.com Music Week Kick off party photos)