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ch-scene - Re: stuff to do, week of February 28, 2009

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Subject: RTP-area local music and culture

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  • From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: stuff to do, week of February 28, 2009
  • Date: Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:21:23 -0500

James Hepler wrote:

all I ever have to do is start typing "local band" into my facebook search
and I don't even have to get to the first 'a' before I see:

"Local Band-Local Beer w/ The T's & Static Minds"

Bam, done. Of course it doesn't help me because I can almost never make the
thursday show at tir na nog unless I'm playing.

Here is my point: this does not work for me, because I'm not FB friends with Chris, and/or I don't get the invites. And I have to assume that if *I* don't get these, then there are probably a lot of other potential fans/patrons who don't either. Facebook is a walled garden, and even if you have 500 friends, you're not getting the whole story.

Their last show was Troika. They have a giant banner up behind the bar
advertising their St. Patty's Day party with live music, raffles, etc, but
they had those made before the bands were confirmed.

Glad to know I haven't missed anything, then. One would have to enter the bar, however, to see the banner, and for whatever reason (hint: smoke) I'm more than willing to walk up to the Pinhook for my beerz, even though Bull McCabe's is literally a block from my house.

But yeah, this kinda goes to my earlier point. Tir Na Nog hasn't been
having rock shows that long,

First one I list is January 31, 2008, but I think there were more before that. So: shorter than Local 506, but longer than the Pinhook.

Even though both
websites have links to music/events or whatever, they're not set up as
"venues" per se.

I agree, which is why I *do* try to go out of my way to find info about Tir Na nOg shows on those 2 weeks every month when the website is effectively useless. But I still get irritated at having to do so ;-)

And while they should promote their shows better, we all
know that word of mouth/TriangleRock/Reverbnation/Facebook/Myspace/ combine
to form a veritable Voltron of promotion.

I agree up to a point, and that point is the point at which the whole thing becomes a cloistered club where you have to know the exact right place to look in order to find out about anything. In an ideal world, someone could move here from out of town and quickly find out about all the good stuff. Given the nature of Teh Internets, that would likely be via a Google search. Close second: picking up the local weekly paper.

Word of mouth/TriangleRock/Reverbnation/Facebook/Myspace come in a very distant third, as they all pre-assume some level of familiarity with the actors involved.

The big lie of Teh Internets in general, and of Web 2.0/social networking in particular, is that it'll make things like event promotion so much easier. It does up to a point, but that point exactly coincides with the limits of your social network. I think we've all agreed at various points over the past couple of years that in order for the local music community to remain vital, we need to attract *new* audience members.

I'm not trying to take Chris or Tir Na nOg (or you) to task about any of this. Just pointing out that if you're already connected to a circle or scene, the new tools make you seem that much *more* connected. Which can make it harder to remember to be sure you're reaching out to newcomers/outsiders.

If you're going to add this disclaimer you should at least remove the
"literally" above. I don't know that you don't check facebook events!

You sending me an invite that I don't see because I never click on the "event invitations" doodad in Facebook *does* mean that this is literally the first time I've heard of it.

Saying it's the first you've heard about it because you were plugging your
ears the actual first time you heard about it is hardly an excuse!

How about this: you yelling it out to me from the sidewalk as I drive by with my windows rolled up, cranking that hot new IWTDI EP I downloaded, is *not* the same as actually telling me about it!

What you're
saying is kinda like me saying I didn't know about a particular show because
I delete your things to do this week email without reading it because I get
so many emails every day.

Sure, and that's your prerogative. Believe me, given the number of times that people ask me "hey, what's going on this weekend?" I'm more than comfortable with the notion that sending the email does not automatically inject all the data into peoples' brains.

Which gets back to my earlier point: successful marketing of anything *still* has to take advantage of *all* channels. There is no single channel so dominant or foolproof as to enable ignoring all the rest of them. Not yet, anyway.

Or to put it the other way: I'm probably not the only person who ignores Facebook invites. What plan do you (or any other event coordinator) have in place to reach out to us? (and yes, I see in the next paragraph that you do have one -- it was a rhetorical question)

Anyway, point taken about the facebook invite, and it's a fair point. Can't
make people look at shit they don't want to look at. This is why I try to
combine facebook with evites or actual, old fashioned emails when letting
people know about the exciting social events I expect you to skip!

Evites! Gaaaaah. Another thing I refuse to look at. What happened to good old fashioned engraving and calligraphy? Are you out to singlehandedly destroy the stationery industry?

xox

Ross




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