Rally suggestions

[nomiyah]

Reading the thread about the open mic, I thought it might be cool to have a thread with some constructive ideas to improve the Rally. I'm not into complaining because it was a very successful event, just opening the conversation to brainstorming.What bothered me about the open mic wasn't whether the performers were good enough. It was the way it was structured. Because there was no schedule of performers, there was a lot of time wasted reading out names of people who weren't there. Most people were like me and didn't spend all night every night waiting for my name to be called.My suggestion for improving this is to use the same system used at the West Coast Songwriter conference. People sign up for open mic at registration and then the names are plugged into a schedule and it's posted up near the stage. That way I know what time I'm scheduled for and I can let people know what time they can see me and have a little crowd. This wasn't a perfect system, there are schedule conflicts and no-shows, but it ran a lot smoother at the WCS than at the Rally.

[aubreyz]

hmmm... That's interesting about an open mic schedule. It would increase some logistics to compile and publish, but sure would be a time saver --- however, I think "luck of the draw" probably increases crowd size. IMHO fewer would hang around if the lineup were set in advance.Honestly, even though the open mic wasn't what I expected, it is what it is. One thought I had was to have a few slots per hour prescreened and scheduled. Like feature slots. Keep the random luck of the draw to give anyone a shot, but also provide an opportunity to compete for a feature spot on the stage. I'd gladly pay to cover screening and logistic costs for that.Another thing that might be cool is to have an A&R panel live showcase in addition to the open mic. Just like a listening panel, but for artists. It would need to be prescreened - then maybe a luck of the draw, perhaps with an entry fee to cover the cost of screening -- but how cool and insightful would it be to get LIVE feedback from a panel of A&R reps. Even if I didn't get to perform, the feedback would be VERY beneficial. Maybe the first hour of the open mic could have panelists??For the listening panels, I don't think misplaced genres should be rewarded by being played anyway. It wouldn't be that difficult to have someone qualified to listen to a bit of the entries after they are randomly drawn. If it's supposed to be pop, but it's country -- throw it out. For me, I would love it if entries were also screened for quality, but I don't think that would be best for the entire membership. For those who aren't even close to the bar, I think it is beneficial to be able to get feedback as to what's missing. If Taxi was able to prescreen some of the entries (just like any other listing), it would be interesting to hear a prescreened vs. a luck of the draw. It's probably not logistically possible, but I wish the panels could be more genre specific. I wasn't really interested in Hip Hop or country Also, it is virtually impossible to trust the "honor" system for one listening panel entry per member. From the conversations I heard, some people were putting CD's in every bin just hoping to get heard. So maybe we get our badges and specific entry stickers for each listening panel. No sticker on the CD - no entry. That would eliminate duplicates. It's sad that people cheat - but that's just the way it is.Another suggestion would be to offer more duplicate Driver's Ed Classes. There were soooo many great choices, but also soooo many overlaps. I spent quite a bit of time going through the schedule and trying to hit as much as possible. If there were more duplicate classes, it would have been helpful in trying to soak in as much as possible.I've been to quite a number of conventions and rallies both as a participant and a behind the scenes organizer. I must say that considering the size, the sheer volume of different things going on and the actual size of the Taxi staff--- the Rally rolled along like a well oiled machine. It was clear that the focus was to provide a meaningful experience for every member, and I believe they more than achieved that goal.Aub

[mazz]

Michael is always talking about how they get submissions for listings that are miles off the mark but they still have to listen to them and critique them. Maybe a good class or panel would be to pick a recent TAXI listing and play a sampling of the submissions. The ones that got forwarded along side the ones that didn't. Some would be on target but just not strong enough, some would be completely off the mark, etc. (Always anonymous, of course).I think this might be an eye-opening experience that might help folks determine how to target listings better and also maybe a step toward understanding where they fit in this category driven business.Maybe there could be one song listing and one instrumental listing focussed on during the session.A peek behind the scenes might be valuable.Mazz

[sgs4u]

This is great Mazz, but maybe it could go a step further, and include a session band actually demo the tune. I'd love to see some producer cats have to work like madmen, surrounded by the membership, expecting greatness, in a 6 hour demo session. Put some extra pressure on whoever's doing the demo, with a deadline, and a listing it's supposed to be submitted to. Like the real world... Imagine if the Rally included 4 demo rooms, all actually demoing winning Taxi members tunes(from a previous lottery or something). I think there's be more than a few singers/song/lyric writers a little peeved if there was only session focused on an instrumental listing. hehe Quote:Michael is always talking about how they get submissions for listings that are miles off the mark but they still have to listen to them and critique them. Maybe a good class or panel would be to pick a recent TAXI listing and play a sampling of the submissions. The ones that got forwarded along side the ones that didn't. Some would be on target but just not strong enough, some would be completely off the mark, etc. (Always anonymous, of course).I think this might be an eye-opening experience that might help folks determine how to target listings better and also maybe a step toward understanding where they fit in this category driven business.Maybe there could be one song listing and one instrumental listing focussed on during the session.A peek behind the scenes might be valuable.Mazz

[aubreyz]

Hey Guys and Gals, I just got an eye opening email from Michael Laskow that he asked me to share so I'm posting it below:__________________________________________________Hi Aub,Sending you this because it's Sunday morning, I'm still in bed (my second day off in six weeks;-), and don't have access to the TAXI database to grab Nomi's email addy. And as you know, I never post directly to the boards because as much as I'd like to be a daily participant, I'd get too sucked in, and not give TAXI as a whole, the attention it deserves. That being said, please post this entire thing in the thread on Rally suggestions.I don't want to diminish anybody's good will in making suggestions, but I'd like to ask that you do it by sending us emails. Here's why:We've been doing the Rally for eleven years now. We've always received suggestions after the fact, and I personally review every single one of them. We keep a file, we select the most valid suggestions, and then we incorporate them in to the next Rally.But to have the suggestions become a discussion on the forum leads to elevating expectations that may never get met, and here's what I mean by that: The thread might have ideas that get floated that sound great to YOU guys and gals, but might be impossible for us to accomplish for many reasons.Then, I'm forced to go public with an explanation (often VERY repetitive from years past) for every one of them, or TAXI could look like it (or I) don't give a damn.There are things behind the scenes that the forum participants either don't know, or in some cases, shouldn't know (an example would be Fire Marshal issue, hotel management issues, labor union issues, etc.)Not trying to hide anything, but a thread like this could force me to have to spend my days publicly explaining things like fire code issues, member/attendee personality issues, hotel unionization attempt issues, etc.Also, as first time attendees, people are often VERY enthusiastic, and just want to help by making these suggestions, but they don't realize that we've put on TEN previous Rallies, and have received nearly every suggestion you can think of after EACH of them. In other words, there's not much new under the sun, but I DO pay attention, looking for the 1%.One might think, “Then why haven't you guys incorporated them?” The answer is that we HAVE, and that's why the Rally is so great. It's YOUR Rally, we just run it. What you got at the 11th Rally is the culmination of ten years of suggestions from your fellow members.That said, if there are things that aren't the way YOU'D like them, there might be (and ARE) people who feel exactly the opposite. I think you guys know how badly I want EVERY single person who comes to the Rally to LOVE it, but in the end, I can't please everybody, so I try to please the MOST.Here are a few things relative to that: If we don't do random drawing of names for the open mic, the audience will ONLY consist of the people on the list. Nobody gives a hoot about anybody else's music if we really want to tell the truth. They are only in that room because THEY might get called. We tried it the other way (for one night) one year, and the room was nearly empty. Sad, but true. Our solution…. We officially opened the second stage open mic that is first come, first served. Neil and Elizabeth started that informally, did a great job, so we formalized it to mitigate some of the other issues.We tried giving ONE hour to some Hit Songwriters (two years ago, I think) to do a round during the open mic a couple of years ago, and people FREAKED out that we/the hit songwriters were “Stealing MY time up there, how dare they!” I created the Teaching Concert for this year, and the attendance was really small, but the lobby bar was FULL while it was going on ;-(We could seed the listening panel with better-targeted music that's been pre-screened, but we'd have to tell everybody (to be forthright about it), and EVERYBODY would want to know if they got picked before hand, and if they didn't, the room would be empty again.Also, the fact that so many people don't correctly pitch their music actually works in our members' favor as they get to see what we deal with EVERY day, and they go home and hopefully become much more selective in their pitches, and begin to do the work of educating themselves as to genres and artist particulars.And don't you think if there was anything but random selection going on, we'd be wide open to accusations of playing favorites. Many of us on the staff have had “offers” to make sure somebody gets their music “picked”. I know that Clint had one this year, and frankly, I remember one year when I was offered oral sex while standing in the foyer right outside the ballroom with a group of ten other people. And the guy was serious!!!!!!! Kidding…. It was a girl ;-)Another suggestion I saw on this thread: “Maybe a good class or panel would be to pick a recent TAXI listing and play a sampling of the submissions. The ones that got forwarded along side the ones that didn't.”Getting members to give permission to use their music is MUCH worse than herding cats… MUCH!!!We used to do Best of TAXI CDs (in the '90s) that would go to EVERY A&R person in the US, Canada, and the UK. To get 15-20 members to give us written permission to give them EXPOSURE to the very TOP people in the industry was like pulling teeth, and it took MONTHS. The music often became irrelevant while we chased them to sign a simple license/release. We did it four or five times, and finally gave up.That effort was totally behind the scenes, cost me thousands to do it each time, not one person EVER said thanks (that I knew of or remember), even though it didn't cost them a penny, and they got the kind of exposure that every musician dreams of. Geeeeessh!Another forum quote: “A peek behind the scenes might be valuable.” Gotta ask, we're you in the room for the Secret Sauce panel at this year's Rally? That was created JUST to do that. I also had Dave and Jesse visit the office a few months ago to report back to the forum readers for that EXACT reason. Did anybody READ what they said? The same person that made that suggestion also posted this right after the Rally (and I'm not doing this to pick on anybody):“It seems like we all got what we came for and more. For me, it was being able to go "under the hood" on some aspects of the business by talking with all my colleagues here. I didn't take any classes but the knowledge I got from hanging with folks like Matt, Dave and the rest was so deep and powerful that it is priceless!”So, I personally spent somewhere around ten hours on just that ONE panel (considering/choosing panelists, bouncing ideas for issues to be discussed on THAT panel with staff members, staying in my office till midnight one night writing questions for it, and then RE-writing them at midnight the night BEFORE the panel to make SURE I really nailed it), and then I see, “A peek behind the scenes might be valuable” from one of our best and brightest.The problem with this thread being public is that if I hadn't seen that and “defended” it, the PUBLIC might actually think we didn't address that issue, or that we've never looked at ways to improve the open mic or the listening panels, or te Rally in general. (BTW, we considered the suggestions in the thread about the open mic BEFORE the Rally, but most of the suggestions were re-hashed and undoable for one reason or another).So, with all those kinds of things considered (and knowing that I'm extremely liberal in what stays up on this forum) I'd like to say what President Reagan said to Mr. Gorbachev; “Tear down this THREAD!”Feel free to email my staff with your suggestions, and know that EVERY one will make it to my desk, and those which we've not considered or tried in the past will get discussed at a staff meeting. Thanks for considering my wishes, and ultimately saving me dozens of hours of redundant work!But please don't be heartbroken if your suggestions aren't incorporated. It doesn't mean that we weren't listening. It probably means that we tried to do it, but couldn't for one reason or another.Thanks,ML