Teacher Feature 10-25-2015

It's true I gave up an evening of personal music-making to participate at this event, but I still think its worth noting in my personal musical development efforts... I learned lots, and got to practice a few things, and enjoyed a really diverse, high quality musical line up!

It turns out someone can "emcee" and make announcements while the musicians are changing over their gear, even though I was told at first this wasn't possible!  Too bad I hadn't been invited to emcee, and that I just barged the stage to do so, lol.  In fact, I wish I had done so earlier to ensure our event started on time, and I wish I had planned more than 1-2min of news to share between performers, because it turns out it took much longer than the provided estimate for the sound techs/stars to do the change overs.

I think if I were to ever perform in such a setting I would "rush" the stage when the musician before me was finished, rather than politely waiting for them to collect their gear and come off the stage, before grabbing my instrument and getting into the sound check in motion game.  Would that be rude, or professional?

The crowd turn out was awesome, and I counted at least 65 familiar faces that I had personally invited to attend, and I was grateful for the thanks and enthusiasm they shared with me through out the night about such a fun and entertaining evening!

I also learned to place any sponsor banners on stage BEFORE the sound equipment gets loaded in, and/or to measure beforehand because it turns out our stand up banners did not fit on stage.  I also learned to keep the prize table and front of the stage free of clutter as it really is distracting in photos afterwards...

I was disappointed in the teacher merch sales, as it was a rare opportunity for them to showcase their professional productions that lend so much credibility to their role as music teachers.  I'd meant to "highlight" one recording at a time from the table as part of their intros, and forgot.  I also should have had prices marked, someone sitting at the table welcoming curious on-lookers, and I should have passed some around for folks to hold and have a look at up close....

I think we did a good job of thanking our sponsors for the swag.  And, it was great to know that some of our customers saw it in the paper as well as hearing about it in the store.  And, for sure it was easy to see who was putting on the evening's festivities as soon as you came in the door though!  Do you think the event will have the intended impact of reminding folks in Guelph that the store is worth visiting? I sure hope so!