The Seventh Swanage Blues Festival will be held in various venues around the town from 2-4 March 2007. Admission is free and further information can be found at www.swanage-blues.org
The festival brings a lot of business into the town on what would be an otherwise very quiet weekend, and it has grown hugely since the first one in 2001.
Organising, advertising and promoting this event takes a considerable amount of my time, energy and money, and I thoroughly enjoy it.However, I am now in a wheelchair and unable to earn money to subsidise the event like I used to, so if anybody would like to help in any way, you are welcome to contact me.
Ways to help include telling friends, relatives and customers; putting up posters; giving out flyers; or putting a link on your website.
You can advertise on the festival website from only £12 a year, make a donation or you might like to sponsor an artist's performance.
I'm also looking for people who can put up a musician for a night or two.
If you can help in any way, please contact me on 01929 422338 or via the website www.swanage-blues.org
Thank you and Compliments of the Season!
--
Posted by Steve Darrington to swanage view at 12/19/2006 06:12:12 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
I see that the festival was publicised in the Guardian on Saturday. Well done. Are you getting many offers of support from local people?
Steve Darrington wrote:
Thank you for telling me about The Guardian! They published a directory of free music festivals and the Swanage Blues Festival was favoured with a prominent position.
I do put in a lot of PR work all the time and can never be sure what's going to work or not.
But that's the way it is when you don't have an advertising budget.
In case you don't know, I put this all together on my own with no funding or grants at all, apart from the Swanage & Purbeck Holiday Accommodaton Association's kind donation of £150, and £30 from each of the pubs. Swanage Town Council do help of course with all the hard work put in by the staff at the Tourist Information Centre. But that's it. So far no other local associations or groups have felt moved to make a donation or assist me financially.
So basically it's all done by me: one guy in a wheelchair putting in a hell of a lot of effort over the year, spending part of his benefit money and hoping that people will enjoy what I do and make a contribution or take an advert on the website (currently from only £12 a year).
Let's not forget that none of it could happen if the pubs and restaurants didn't co-operate by allowing me to choose the acts, and then paying them (at Swanage rates). Nor would there be a festival without all the professional musicians - most of whom are personal friends - being willing to come down and play for what the venues can afford to pay.
If you take a look at the website www.swanage-blues.org and read the comments about 2006, you'll understand a bit more. If you read the information about the artists appearing in 2007, you'll probably be surprised at the calibre of artists appearing too.
It just goes to show what you can do if you try!
Incidentally, I have been saying for years that if I did get financial support, I could do more of these weekends - which would bring huge benefits to Swanage.
re your observation "that if I did get financial support, I could do more of these weekends - which would bring huge benefits to Swanage." ... forgive me if you have done it already, but have you made a specific proposal of objectives/needs? If you have already done this, could I see a copy? Mike Hadley.
Thank you Mike. Why would I want to spend time writing a specific proposal when my inital approaches have met with disinterest?
Sorry Mike, I didn't wish to be rude. One organisation asked me to write a proposal and back it up with past accounts, but said they had no money anyway. Others haven't even been that negative!
I didn't mean anything terribly detailed or complicated. Just if you are thinking of asking the council (or anyone else) for financial support, what they usually like to see is a proposal that says "we would like to do this; it would achieve this; it would involve this and it would cost this: can you help?" I may have misunderstood and you may have already done that; but if not, it might be a good idea, for people are unlikely to say "here you are, have some dosh and see what you can do" Just a thought. Mike
You're quite right, Mike, I totally agree. They are unlikely to say "here you are, have some dosh and see what you can do".
What they've actually said is "we've seen what you can do with the Swanage Blues Festival but there's no money for that or anything else you might want to do. We don't have any money."
That's why I've never bothered to take matters further with a written proposal.
After this festival I will be publishing details of the extent to which different organisations have said they are prepared to help, or not.
Post a Comment