Citizen Works - Tools for Organizing

Maybe you enjoy rockin' and rollin'. Maybe you like the whole soul of the independent music community, with its implicit rejection of mainstream culture, and with the entire spirit of rebellion that is so intrinsic to its essence. And maybe you want to mobilize that community, to tie it to the explosion of the progressive movement.

So you want to set up a benefit show for your organization? Bravo. Here's how you can speak up, act up, and lend a hand.

Know Your Budget

The easiest way to do it is to work backwards. How much money do you hope to raise? How much money do you have as a budget? What are the expenses? Add up all the expenses and then project a conservative number of people you expect to attend. For example: if expenses total $500 and you hope to attract 100 people, then you need to charge at least $5 per ticket in order to break even. But you don't want to break even. This is a benefit, remember? The whole idea is to make some noise and raise some money. So how much money do you hope to raise? If you wanted to raise $500, then charge $10 per ticket. Or try and attract more than 100 people. Duh. For normal shows, people tend to settle around $7 as a reasonable price to pay for an independent show.

Pick a Hot Date

When do you want to do the show? Gotta know that before you can set anything else in stone. Although, what you can do to accelerate the process is to talk to bands to get a feeling for loose interest in putting on a benefit show. Pick your date strategically, considering your availability and the availability of your staff (more on that later), what nights more people are likely to come, and the dwindling number of days between now and the election.

Gotta Have a Venue

If you don't have a venue, you don't have a show. Fortunately for you, there are more places to play than most people would think. If you don't have the resources to book a show at an established club, try churches or youth centers, or random rooms or halls at college campuses. You'd be surprised how willing most places are to help out pro-active, self-realized kids who want to do something that does not revolve around alcohol. Just tell them what you want to do, that it will be alcohol and drug free, and that you'll take care of the place. Don't forget to ask them if there is a curfew or anything particular you should know, as you don't want to be finding that out for the first time during the night of the show.

Rockin' Like Dokken (or: choosing the band)

If you are not aware of the near infinite number of great bands who would be willing to play for the proverbial peanuts, you might not be the right person to be setting up a show. This is not to say that you need to know them personally. Of course you don't. But the less aware you are of the ocean of music that exists, the more difficult the whole process will be for you. That said, come up with a list of bands that you'd like to see play, and then start digging. Phone numbers and email addresses are not terribly hard to find, if you try hard enough. And what with the whole information superhighway, the wonderful labels that release all the wonderful music of these bands should have their contact info available on their shiny, happy web sites. Most of these independent labels will be very happy to put you in touch with whomever you want to be in touch with. One thing to consider, though, is the drawing size of the band that you want to book. For example, Britney Spears could not play at the local community center for $6. The building would fall down. Keep the capacity of the venue in the back of your mind, and try to fit a band to it accordingly.

Hey, Mr. Soundman

So you've got your hot date, you've got your venue, and you've got your band(s). Don't forget to hire somebody to do sound for the show! If it's a small show in a small place, you probably only need a small PA that you can rent from various places that can be found in the phone book. General rule of thumb: the larger the show, the larger the sound system that needs to be ready to go. After all, people show up because they want to actually hear the band, rather than just watch them. So go ahead, ask around, and find somebody who can come over and work the show at a reasonable fee that will fit your budget. Or, use your connections to find someone who will donate their equipment and expertise for the show. Just remember that this generous contribution is considered an in-kind donation and must be recorded as such.

Stages are for You and Me

Stages are only essential for really large shows. If you're booking a show that you expect to draw more than a couple hundred people, nobody past the first several rows will be able to see anything if there isn't a stage. And that's no good. Get yourself a stage and spare yourself the beating that you might take after the show from angry fans who paid to watch the back of someone's head. You could either call around, ask the sound guy who he's worked with before (often times sound and stage work together), or, if you are short on funds, build or borrow one yourself.

Volunteers: Get by with a little help from your friends

You definitely don't want to be the only person working at the show, as you'll be stretched all over the place and too stressed to enjoy what you worked hard to put together. So make sure you have enough people there to help you do everything that needs to be done: watch the front door and take money, crowd monitoring, trash pickup, and to generally be on the prowl, paying attention to the show to make sure it goes smoothly.

Fly, Fly, Flier Away

Almost all of the technical points should have been covered, so now all you have to do is talk it up! Publicize until your arms fall off. Put fliers everywhere. Take out an ad in the city paper. Post about the show on web boards. Send notice out to email lists.

Tonight's the Night

The night of your hot date arrives, and you're a little jittery. But don't worry, all will go fine. Just get there early and stay on your toes. Tell your volunteers exactly what you need them to be doing, and just make sure all the bases are covered. Make sure someone is at the door collecting the dough at all times, make sure there are enough people roaming through the crowd to ensure that everything is safe, and make sure to introduce yourself to the sound, stage, and band folk at the very beginning so that they know who to go to if there are any questions/problems/etc.…

There you have it. Be prepared to stay late cleaning up (you'll probably find some rather gross things, but all in the name of democracy, right?), and in general just try to keep cool and have fun.