Saturday, March 28, 2009

arts trail preparation


It’s been a strange and hectic week (and a bit).
I agreed to help sort out the leaflet/brochure (whatever it’s called) for this year’s SouthBank arts trail (after Mark’s huge contributions over recent years). This sounds a lot easier than it actually is! The bulk of the work (ie. getting artists on board) had already been done by Natalie and Pete – arts trail stuff must be completely clogging Natalie’s computer system and her e-mails! We’ve been trying to get images and information from more than 50 venues together with short blurb from over 130 artists/performers. The absolute deadline for receiving all this was some 10 days’ ago.
By Wednesday morning, I was still awaiting feedback from some 17 venues together with stuff from a couple of dozen artists. Oh, and of course, there were some artists who had yet to decide on or find venues!
It has really been very exasperating (I’ve even been out and taken photographs for venues myself, rather than continuing to wait for any responses – and frequently, when we have managed to get a response from the artists or venues, we were told “oh, sorry…. yes, I’ll sort it out by the weekend” or words to that effect)! Aaaargh!!
Thanks to Hannah’s help, we’re hoping to complete everything by tomorrow evening, ready for the printers (just 10,000 copies, that’s what we need!).
The SouthBank Arts Trail is a pretty amazing event. This is its seventh year and it features over 130 artists/performers – all within a ONE MILE RADIUS (I’ve just checked it on the OS map)!
As I say, amazing!
Photo: Hannah’s initial draft arts trail poster

2 comments:

Pete Gilbert said...

Steve, the amount of energy you have put into this is staggering. I am hugely appreciative of the work you have done.

This year's trail does have a real "buzz" about it, with so much going to be happening in such a small area. It's going to be a great event and that is all down the the hard work of people such as yourself and Natalie. Thanks!

bigdaddystevieB said...

PETE: As you (of all people!) well know, the arts trail happens each year because of the efforts of a comparatively small group of people. Frankly, it's probably just as well - because if we had to get a consensus of thirty-odd people, things would NEVER happen! The somewhat frighteningly, the "finishing line" stays in the same place despite the "tardiness" of some of the artists!
But let's: a)get it agreed by the steering group, b) get it to the printers, c) keep our fingers crossed that there aren't too many mistakes and d) hope that there are no technical hitches at the printers!!