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Hey - I've had some PMs from folks asking questions about the Rally so I figured, let's start a thread where we give out some general info on what happens at the Rally & stuff. Ask questions too.WHERE DOES IT HAPPEN?Los Angeles, CA. Taxi requests that we DO NOT post this year's location. Just talk about "the hotel".WHAT DO I NEED TO DO IF I'M GOING? First of all, you must be Taxi member or the registered guest of one. Each Taxi member attending is permitted to bring one guest, and you must pre-register the guest at the same time you register yourself. Don't wait too long - there are a limited number of tickets.Pre-register at http://www.taxi.com/rally/signup2008.html or call Taxi's toll-free number at the top of the forum.After you register for the Rally, you can book your hotel room on-line as well - I think there is a link after the on-line Taxi registration. Or you can call. Word is the hotel is full or nearly full, so don't wait to book your room. This year I also had to pay a deposit of one night+tax when booking.WHEN DOES THE RALLY START/END:The Rally opens officially at 5 pm on Thursday Nov 6th, for registration. I think there are two open mics that night as well. The "offical" open mike in the big ballroom, where you put your name in a big box & get to play if they pull it; and a small, casual open mic in one of the meeting rooms with a sign-up sheet. The Rally usually ends at 6pm on Sunday afternoon.TAXI MEMBERS NOTE: one of the things you get for being a Taxi member at the Rally is a free 15 minute appointment with the mentor of your choice. These appointments go fast, and you make them immediately after you register & pick up your registration materials. (The actual appointments happen on Friday.) That's why people start lining up an hour or more before registration opens. This will be good time to meet other people in the line-up, something you'll be doing a lot of! So, altho you can register & get your name tag at any time during the Rally, if you want a mentor appointment, you likely need to register on Thursday night.CHOOSING A MENTOR: Taxi will provide you with registration materials when you register that include the schedule of panels, classes, and a list of mentors & other activities. They also provide this info on-line a couple of weeks before the Rally. I strongly recommend you print this information off and take it with you on the plane as you need to do some pre-planning to make the most of your time. CLASSES & PANELS: There are TONS of classes and panels at the Rally. Like I mentioned with the Mentor info, I print off a copy of the schedule before I leave home. Many classes are only given once and several classes run at the same time, and there are always Panels in the main Ballroom. I look carefully through the schedule and mark off events I definitely want to get to and try to figure out a schedule for myself. It's impossible to get to everything... so please take notes from the classes you attend! We all come back from the Rally and post our notes on the forum to pass along what we learned to each other and to the members of the Forum who couldn't make it.In addition to the Classes & Panels, and the member-only Mentor Appointment, there are also member-only Mentor Lunches on Friday and Saturday. You need to buy your tickets for this in advance of the Rally, I'm sure Taxi will send out an email to all registrants when they are ready. Last year it was... $35 ea. What you get is... a lovely lunch that would likely cost more if you ate at a local restaurant, and the opportunity to meet Mentors in person. I've spoken with Pat Pattison, Michael Anderson, John Braheny, Fett, and many others at the lunches. Of course, you share your table with other Taxi members, and everyone gets to ask a question or two of the mentors. It's really not about socializing, it's about getting the most out of the 15 minutes your group gets to spend with each industry professional that comes to your table.WHAT YOU SHOULD BRING:A notebook! Many bring CDs of their music to pass out/exchange with others. Definitely bring 3 or 4 CDs to enter into the Panel draw... each panel draws music from genre boxes & gives feedback in the moment. You are permitted to enter one song on one CD per panel. And business cards if you have them. Some folks do bring guitars... sometimes there are jams goin on all over, ha ha.ABOUT THE HOTEL PHONE:Last year I made the mistake of calling my Taxi friends on their cell phones from my hotel room... at the cost of $5 per minute or something. Even my friend who lives in LA - it cost me $40 to talk to him for a couple minutes to say I had arrived. I didn't know about this until I checked out - it added considerably to the cost of my stay & impacted my budget. I am not the only one who was surprised. So, call your friend's rooms, not their cell. Or call their cell from your cell. Or use the pay phones in the Lobby.OPEN MICS:Yeah, there are open mics at the Rally. They aren't showcases, they aren't for the industry folks to check you out. They are to share what you do with members & guests. They provide sound, electric & acoustic guitar and a keyboard. Or bring your own. Check your registration materials for more info.ABOUT MEALS:Based on my experience last year, the best value at the hotel is the buffet. If you eat a la carte, watch the prices, it can mount up. There is a Denny's just down the street to your left, and to the right is MacDonalds and a little cafe. There's a Starbucks bar in the hotel lobby that serves coffee & muffins & stuff every morning.ABOUT BEING A "DOT":In the past, when going to the Rally, we'd all say, "see you there". And then you got there and never got to meet the people you wanted to meet, because there were 1,200 other people milling around. So last year, Dave Walton had the inspiration that we Forum Members who are going to the Rally could identify ourselves by wearing a "dot" on our name tag (Dave, can you post your picture?). They are those round sticky labels that you use for filing or for price tags. This helped us identify each other, and, I have to say, worked really well. In addition... forum members tended to hang out, when not busy, in the bar So whether you are a new Taxi member or not, if you're a member of this forum, you are a "Dot". If you'd rather not wear a dot, that's fine - but please come and introduce yourself anyway!! In fact, as time gets closer, I will start a thread for everyone who is going, and I'll make a list of Forum members attending the Rally.ADD YOURSELF TO THE LIST, HERE:http://taxi.proboards27.com/index.cgi?b ... 00MISC:Get caught up on your sleep before you come. The Rally is intoxicating, exciting, overwhelming, inspiring... you might talk so much you lose your voice by Sunday!IS IT WORTH GOING TO?That's a decision only you can make. But I talk a little about my own personal experience on this thread:http://taxi.proboards27.com/index.cgi?b ... ead=8945So, if you have any other questions, please post them and we'll try to help!cheersHummin'birdPS - What's a Dot?http://taxi.proboards27.com/index.cgi?b ... hread=9247

Hummin'bird, thanks for posting this. Very helpful. And especially thanks for finally divulging the meaning of a "DOT". I've seen that used for so long and never could figure out what it meant!Since I'm a local boy to the rally, I'd like to volunteer to handle your (everybody's) demo CDs. What I mean by that is, if you have so many CDs you want to bring and don't want to pay extra baggage charges on the airline, you can ship them to me and I will gladly deliver them to you at the rally. But don't think about shipping me your luggage. I'd lose that faster than any airline could!Steve

Aug 21, 2008, 2:12pm, stevebarden wrote:Hummin'bird, thanks for posting this. Very helpful. And especially thanks for finally divulging the meaning of a "DOT". I've seen that used for so long and never could figure out what it meant!Since I'm a local boy to the rally, I'd like to volunteer to handle your (everybody's) demo CDs. What I mean by that is, if you have so many CDs you want to bring and don't want to pay extra baggage charges on the airline, you can ship them to me and I will gladly deliver them to you at the rally. But don't think about shipping me your luggage. I'd lose that faster than any airline could!SteveThat would be awesome - I was trying to really travel light this year as I don't want to check baggage & drag around big suitcases!!

Steve,That's a fantastic idea and VERY gracious of you to offer. I hope you have plenty of storage space in your garage or you may wind up regretting this decision.

Vikki - WONDERFUL post!!! Where do you find the time???I wanted to add something, and I hope this is also helpful. I would like to offer assistance to new attendees, as possible, if you have questions on genre for your music, or if you want to know what classes are best to take at whatever level your at. The reason is that I went to my first rally with 3 others, so we tried to each take different classes and compare notes. Excellent strategy, I'd say. However, the rally was SO exciting and so busy that we hardly had time to talk to eachother to compare notes! Also, we took some classes that would have been better later on, and some that were not what we thought they would be. This will be my 3rd rally. I still have not made it into many of the classes that I feel are appropriate for me to take at this point. It is one hell of an education crammed into one short weekend, so if you have any questions that I can assist with I am happy to help you make the most of your rally experience, in any way I can. Just make sure you give me your seat if the classes I want to get into are full....KIDDING!! For me those were the 2 "hardest" things to figure out during my first rally - thats my motivation for the offer. You can just pm me any questions you may have, with a link to your music.

good post, Anne - and you are so right. It does take some figuring out. And that's why I mentioned printing off the on-line Rally schedule of panels & classes and figuring out a time table for yourself. There is no way you can go to everything - and all the classes fill up fast.I actually do myself up a little calendar in Word or Excel for each day, and put a couple of choices in each time slot. That may morph as I talk to people at the Rally and think about where I am in my career; or as I watch panels and think, 'I'd like to hear more from that person' & I see they have a class.I also make sure to give myself breaks as well. I know my bio rythms and I know I can only take in so much at one time. But even with careful planning I find my brain protesting at all the input by Sunday at the Rally Just another note re my post above -- all the thoughts I've provided are based on my experience of 3 Rally's, that being said, Taxi may adjust things this year and I am not an 'official spokesperson', but hopefully the info I've provided is fairly accurate!

So... I'm feeling a little discombobulated here, as I have received NOTHING in the way of Rally info for this year. Am I just missing something or are you guys just basing all your plans on a general sense of how last year went?

Aug 21, 2008, 5:33pm, tedsingingfox wrote:So... I'm feeling a little discombobulated here, as I have received NOTHING in the way of Rally info for this year. Am I just missing something or are you guys just basing all your plans on a general sense of how last year went?The only info I've received is a note in one of the listing emails that said we could register for the Rally on-line.The rest is all what I know from the past.

Same here. I haven't received anything regarding this years rally, and I also need to state that I don't work for Taxi.

Awesome thread...................!!!These are many of the answers to questions I had.Thanks so much and see you there........