Events - the ins and outs

Afternoon all,

Interesting times at the moment for me - even though the next few weeks are a bit quiet on the events front, April to July is going to see quite a pick up, not just in Alt.Fiction terms but also on freelance terms as well.

I have to admit that this is one of my favourite phases of work. First of all you have the daydreaming, the blue sky thoughts of what would be absolutely ideal to run. That's a good bit, because at that point the world is your oyster. Then it's taking all those optimistic, wide-eyed ideas and then trying to apply some kind of sense to them - what is feasible, what is realistic, what is affordable. At that point you tend to lose a whole batch of ideas, and after that process of elimination you're left with a simple choice - just how much can I take on? And what offers me the best return on my time and effort?

I don't want that to sound too clinical, but I think we all know these are tough times and unfortunately my days of being able to do things because it was a good idea are long behind me. If it doesn't make money, then unfortunately it's on the ideas scrapheap and soon forgotten about. Artistic quality doesn't always pay the bills unfortunately.

Then it comes to my absolute favourite part - the logistics, the real ins and outs of putting an event together. People will often say to me 'I don't know how you go about running events'. And I always say that it's not any particular talent, it's just that your brain either works that way or it doesn't. Ever since I first started going to events I was interested in how they came together and how they worked on the day - from my earliest days of volunteering just after university, the process fascinated me almost as much as the event themselves.

And that's what I mean by how your brain works - 9 out of 10, perhaps 99 out of 100 people, would go to an event and listen to the speaker and just enjoy it, take it in. I try and do that as well, but there are all sorts of thoughts pop unbidden into my mind such as 'I wonder what this venue cost to hire?', 'I wonder if you could do idea X in this space', 'I wonder what the deal was on the bookstall' and so on. I'm always interested in what lies underneath an event, which is no doubt how I've come to putting events together myself over the last five years. I'm also a dreadful venue watcher when I'm out and about, which I think is a particularly bad habit, but I digress.

The other thing about events is that you have to remember that the ultimately satisfying thing is the end result. Many jobs and walks of life you have landmarks on a pretty regular basis, things that you can tick off and say, 'yes, that was done successfully'. An event essentially has no life apart from on paper until the day, and even then your months of planning will only result in a day or a weekend of activity. That's not something that is satisfying for everyone. But for me, again, the penchant for logistics comes in, because for me that one day of activity is not just one success, but a whole series of small successes. When the venue is set up right, that's a little moment of satisfaction. When things kick off on time, that's another. When the glasses of water arrive on time, that's another tiny victory. And these are the things that make up an event, the tiny pieces of a jigsaw that hopefully will only ever be seen as a whole by an audience, but has been painstakingly put together over many months.

I suppose, frankly, that to most people these types of ins and outs are ultimately quite boring. Even more so, as an audience member, they are largely unnoticeable in your experience. But do bear in mind the people who put events together up and down the country will ultimately succeed or fail on these often tiny factors. I salute my fellow pedants, detail-watchers and control freaks who make all these things happen.

To be honest, I struggle to see myself ever not doing events. It's become a sort of addiction over the years, the buzz of planning and putting together and then the even bigger buzz of getting there on the day and thinking 'I made this happen', or at least in part made it happen. There will always be other things on the table as a freelancer, but events are ultimately what I love. So brace yourselves for more - more from Alt.Fiction and more from Alex Davis Industries or whatever it may in time be called.

So just remember, next time you see a glass of water arrive on stage, that was meant to happen.

-Alex