The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Assuming official means a "hey kids, Old Man Johnson'll let us use his barn, let's put on a show!" then, well hell, by hook or by crook… but should know soon if my "big night/Saturday" venue will go for us, so's I can raise the flag for y'all to pull the triggers with confidence and giggly-ness.

And yeah, the Brewers Festival was like a sign from the scheduling gods, heh. Nothing concrete on the Timbers' schedule for the weekend, alas.

That weekend is also the PDX adult soapbox derby, which is a fantastic, longstanding Portland institution.

http://www.soapboxracer.com/

RG, I'll start asking around for August 14th acoustic-y venues...

I suspect there's always something whimsical and crazy going on in Portland.

Yrch... personally, I think Grimm is a more accurate representation of Portland than Portlandia, but that's pro'lly just me

Em: Coolio, gracias. Maybe in SE or NE for a change of neighborhood/vibe?

Yeah yeah... but the Derby! I dunno. Maybe I'm biased, but it's one of the best syntheses of the various strands of Portland idiosyncrasy.

You have the beautiful setting on Mt Tabor, dormant volcano!
You have beer!
You have the punky, (f)artsy kids dressing up and making beautiful stuff!
You have engineering dorks dressing up and making beautiful stuff!
You have an enthusiastic crowd of all ages cheering the whole thing on!

I am very pro-derby. We could have a picnic/busking outing.

Yeah, I'm trying to focus on SE. NE is a possibility too.

Serenades from the switchbacks! (The upper side, naturally, safety first )

Let the penny-saving commence! I'm working hard on making this trip happen

Heya kids!

So, I'm not having a TON of luck finding venues for Friday night (August 14). I hope that RG if faring better in the quest for Saturday.

I do have a place lined up and ready to take us from 6:00pm until 10:30 on August 14th. It's a little sub-optimal, as it's on the early side, a shortish slot, and would likely be limited to a more acoustic / less plugged-in setup.

Pat, do you have any sense from your guys as to when they'll be able to give you an idea as to whether 8/15 is dice or no dice?

Follow up nags go out tomorrow, and more come-ons to more venues. Oy, I hate booking.

Em, I got no sense at all (couldn't resist).

Ooh, just exchanged emails with a place that, if they are willing to host us, seems REALLY awesome. Fingers crossed!

(Am I jumping the gun on assuming that Rabid / Portland is the host / venue of choice? Do we have official consensus / blessing?)

Rabid has to be the host, as I have never been to a previous SFL. I know. SO LAME.

Well, been to a total of one SFL, myself, so... I think it's safe to say that Portland is the host, and we're just helping with the fussy details

Securing a venue makes you the de facto host.

I think we have a guide somewhere on the boards about hosting an SFL, I'll try to find it or if somebody else can find it and link it here go for it.

anti-m wrote:Ooh, just exchanged emails with a place that, if they are willing to host us, seems REALLY awesome. Fingers crossed!

Hmmm... I visited this place last night -- on second thought, this venue is a little bit of a funny shape, and they don't yet seem to have foodses. I may have to rescind my previous optimism.

Pat, let me know how your Saturday night booking battle goes -- I'm going to send an email to one of my husband's friends who has a sound stage in the old City Nightclub building. (It has a greenscreen and grid and everything! Music videos anyone?)

He might be willing to let us use the space, but it would not be free. I would also have to research insurance / alcohol servage -- but it is a possibility that we could explore should other options fail to materialize.

Don't let lack of food be the reason to give up on a venue, especially if it allows food inside and there's nearby takeout places. (Given the choice between two venues in which one has food and the other doesn't, generally side with the one with food, though.)

Of all the SF Lives I've been to, I think the majority of them have been at foodless venues, and they were still good times. Church of the Friendly Ghost, that weird community center where we did Boston, the Cayuga Vault in Santa Cruz, that coffee shop in Spokane, the acoustic night in NYC, the night without the heckler in Seattle (where they had a menu and everything and they were more than happy to talk about everything on it but then when ordering they'd say "Oh, but we don't have a kitchen anymore" uh... thanks?), and 7DL in DC.

Yeah, food options are "nice to have". Order of niceness is:

- food sold in venue
- BYO: food available nearby, food allowed in venue
- BYO: food available nearby, food NOT allowed in venue
- food NOT available nearby (folks will have to plan ahead about food)

Similarly with alcohol:

- alcohol sold in venue
- BYO: alcohol available nearby, allowed in venue
- BYO: alcohol available nearby, NOT allowed in venue
- alcohol NOT available nearby (folks will have to plan ahead about alcohol)

As for paying for a venue, this has been done before, using combinations of out-of-pocket expense on the part of the host(s), before-hand Internet crowdfunding, on-site in-person crowdfunding (aka begging ).

What about this place?

http://hipbonestudio.com/rent-hipbone

Show Rates: $225/show, with $12 or less ticket price and $250/show for over $12 ticket price.

As a venue that looks good. We would probably want to get clarification about "Lights and sound for performance" as in, do they just provide the equipment for that, or personnel to run the equipment also? It's really preferable if we have a dedicated sound person at least, but it's possible for us to get by without it.

The other potential issue is tickets. We most likely will not sell a lot of tickets. The usual crowd is almost entirely made up of performers. Maybe they would want to charge more if we weren't going to draw much of a crowd. The price is kind of high. For a lot of folks, the travel and accommodations and living expense of attending can be a lot, so while we can crowdfund it to some degree that realistically only goes so far.

It looks like a very nice place though.

Seems like the fee is pretty flexible. We used to rent that Hot Lunch space in SF for about that, $250ish a show.

Oh my god, it's attached to a Jazzercise studio. I might never leave...

Jack, that's certainly viable as a last resort option... thanks for the find!

If I remember correctly, I think the Cayuga Vault was around that much. ($200-250)