Ft. Myer's Art Walk BayWalk

[Dallas]

I learned a valuable lesson this weekend. ASK HOW MANY OTHER STREET PERFORMERS ARE ALSO ATTENDING EVENT!!!

Seemed to me that the organizers just said "YES" to everyone who responded to their ad.

The event was only about 2 blocks long and there was atleast 15 circle shows scheduled to be there.

The weather was crappy.

I left early enough to get back to Clearwater and do shows.

Lesson learned.

[TCsteinberg]

I left before anything started on Saturday, once I realized the organizer had no idea what she was doing. Wasted time, gas $$, stayed in a hotel and woke up real early for no reason, white knuckle driving through a rain downpour, and turned down a "real" paying gig for that Saturday, ALL FOR NUTTIN! Kicked my own bum about it all the way home. My lesson learned... I dunno. All of the eccentric, ramblin, and grammatically incorrect e-mails from the organizer were a tip off to "proceed with caution", but, I still proceeded. Uuugh.
Hope those that stayed made some $$.

~ todd aka billy bob

[BRYANDANGEROUS]

Baywalk "festival"

I too drove through the pouring rain from Myrtle Beach SC all for nothing. I learned my lesson as well. Saturday was cold and windy I didn't even unload my props. My wife tried to do statue but the wind made it impossible and there was nobody there so we quit early. Hoping Sunday would be better we drove by the site and noticed some of the vendors didn't even bother coming back we didn't even get out we just left. Nothing like spending tons of money for no reason. Atleast I'll hit Disney on the way home so it's not a total loss!

Bryan Dangerous

[bretblackshear]

Well, lets not beat ourselves up too bad about trying this one, guys.... After all the original post for this event looked pretty legit and sweet:

" This is a new venue that begins Sat Dec 5th to coincide with our Christmas Boat Parade. It will be reacurring the first Sat of each month from 4-10 pm. Expected Attendees approx 2 thousand. We are blocking off three Blocks in the downtown area. The first event will have a mountain of snow and snow village. Vendors are all art craft and decorating tents christmas. There will be an area for santa pictures either pirate santa or beach bum santa. There will be a band area and also a performance stage rotating both profit and non profit dance and theater schools. We will be rotating 3 non profits as partners Pace, Arts for ACT and the Boys & Girls Clubs. There will be an ongoing raffle for prizes.

Performers are unpaid but make good money from the hat (without this planned event and advertising blitz planned for November. Must be registered to perform. Currently seeking clowns, jugglers, magicians, one-man bands, stilt walkers, baloonmen, human statues,Fire dancing, mimes, break dancers, unicyclists, escape artists, contortionists, puppeteers, acrobalancers, animal acts, dancers, bagpipers, barbershop quartets, troubadours, unique musicians, and all sorts of novelty acts.

I am workin on hotel room trades for advertising but how many I am able to get each month will will vary and be how many I can put up from out of town (2-4 to a room) will be on a first come first serve basis of the approved acts. I will also be running a showcase area for choice performers each event and these performers will be paid at a rate of 100.00 per hr. they will be picked at the event as acts I see deserving of status and will be rotated off street to staged area.

I will be your contact and looking forward to hearing from you Anita McFadden VP Sales & Marketing Brilliantsee 239-440-9599 or amcfadden@brilliantsee.net"

So, as you can see, it looked pretty good. Too bad the only thing she lived up to was the accomodations.
At least we'll know to avoid this person in the future.

[SilverLady]

Ft. Myers gig

Well guys, I stayed...I did my Living statue sat & sun.....after performing for a total of 8 hours....I made $75.00 total....WTH....I, like all of you, had that funny feeling about driving down there, but did it anyways...I learned that a total of 3 living statue were there....geeze, in an area that big, only 1 of everything is needed.

I never saw the entire post, thanks for sharing it...WHAT SNOW? I never saw snow...Sunday didn't have rain, so 3 more vendors showed up...A total of 3 acts stayed and 2 living statues, a magician and his wife, who played her harp. A guy set up to draw, but don't think he did anything.

AND THE HIGH LIGHT of it all...the USA Break Dancers from NYC did 1 show on sunday...They drew a crowd...and after their show...everyone left...except maybe 20 people...

All in all, it SUCKED...I wish I would have known about the $100.00 bonus ...I'll have to ask Anita about that....I stuck it out...I should be reward ...just for my EFFORT.....lmao

For a promoter to have "25 years experience in the business" she sure didn't have a grip on it...did she?

At the end, I also asked her for one of those T-SHIRTS (that she spent so much of our entertainment money on) and she said..."I"ll have to see if I have any left on Sunday"....omg...she had 400 t-shirts left and 3,000 flyers left over...STILL LMAO...and still didn't give me one.!

It was a trip - experience - to remember....NOT TO DO AGAIN~!

[bretblackshear]

Well, Barbara, you did better than we did. My wife and I together did about $50.00 for the whole weekend. We left around 12:30 on Sunday out of disgust. We were "booked" for this event for months and neither of our names were even on the crappy t-shirts. My favorite was their efforts to charge vendors and performers for parking.
And, 3000 flyers leftover? There were flyers? And they didn't put them up all over town? WTF? Oh well...

[SilverLady]

hey bret.....I wrote a letter to Anita regarding the $100.00 an hour....The CHOICE AWARD...I hope I"m picked...I asked her to send the check to my home address....I'll let you know if she does...I was told you were off to Clearwater, let me know if you're in town

[bretblackshear]

I hope your picked too. Good luck with that seeing [I]that[I] money. We're briefly in the Clearwater area, but plans are in constant flux it seems. Leaving to go back to St. Augustine in the AM. We'll be at the Jacksonville RAM this Saturday.

[Dallas]

1st stike

the first strike was when i got charged $4 to park.

I'm sure it looked good on paper!

[George Gilbert]

YEAH, Sounds like a repeat of Palatka. Glad I didn't come down..

Did any of you guys end up working the square at night... I heard it's been really dead there.

[Daniel Mooncalf]

I was on the fence about doing this. When that late hour email came down the pipes about who was getting paid, who wasn't, and what her budget had become, I decided to not go.

Thanks for letting me know I didn't miss out.

[Rocco Acrobat]

I have a bad habit of following through once I start in so I stuck it out and was rewarded with one okay hat on Sunday night.

It's the first year. I hope this event is a little more organized come next year-one redeeming note is that Anita was religious about taking notes about what to change for the next time around.

If I could change one think I think that this one should really have been for just Ft. Myers performers, with maybe one outside paid headliner. It kinda reminded me of the little farmer's markets you get in towns all over the place.

I do have my regrets too, but I could get lost in them. This event gave me a stopover on the way to a really good gig so I'm really not mad at it.

Bryan, thanks for trying to throw me a lifeline.

[USA BREAK DANCERS]

Thanks Silver Lady.....

[aztommyb]

I learned a valuable lesson this weekend. ASK HOW MANY OTHER STREET PERFORMERS ARE ALSO ATTENDING EVENT!!!

their promotional materials said 200 performers!! There may have been 10 that showed, and maybe 5 that actually did a show. That said, it was horrible weather and even if it would have been the best organized event ever... probably wouldn't have been any people to enjoy it.

[streetshowkeith]

What's up dallas? hope all is well in in scientology land! Looks like nick got hims self a handle i dig it! Heading to miami in a couple of days hope to bump into you!