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Events & Audience Engagement Objectives
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Upcoming Goals: Research venues for Harlem Renaissance Event, flesh out date/ ideas for Table Event, brainstorm ideas for a possible 3rd event focused more on social justice issues, also are there any promotional relationships we can begin?
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Events/ Objectives!Plan Of ActionStatusWeekly Update 1/27Weekly Update 2/3Weekly Update 2/10Weekly Update 3/9
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Harlem Renaissance Event (Dates 4/18-20??)Review spreadsheet of potential venues, cold call or email locations that are of particular interest, narrow down locations, venue visits, establish working relationship with location's events coordinatorIn progressGeneral class discussion; everyone scouting out venues. Set loose dates for 4/18-20? Questions about a.) alcohol situation? b.)location: consensus on Harlem, c.) do we want a bar that comes set up or a bar that we can use as a bare space that we in turn decorate? d.) What is our price range? Is it possible to find a free venue with a preset open bar situation? There will be an assessment of finances next week which will be easier to work from.Lockdown location by Friday. Tom, Alex, and Dani still in discussion with venues. Harlem Raw seems to be frontrunner. Date @ Raw: Thursday 4/14. May also invest in venue DJ. Location & Date Set: Harlem Raw Space on April 14th from 5-10pm (open @ 6:30-9). Charge $25, $10 for BSA and ASILY members, 60-70 people max (limited tix) What we want: Readings of Harlem Renaissance greats (20 mins max.), open bar (free beer from Brooklyn Brewery and white wine), food (costco desserts), sell broadsides, dress up (prize for costume; male and female), cabaret singer (student performers?), fordham jazz collective (offer $150; Vanessa contacting), photobooth and props w/ CURA watermark (Gambito's assistant or one of us volunteer as photographer), ask Carl Hancock Rux to pefrorm, Chocolate tasting- trader joes; invitations completed; promotions to be featured at event; get awards for costumes; still need to hear back from Brooklyn Brewery-- plan to have wine and beer.
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Table & Fundraising Event @ PlazaNail down a date, talk w/ class and figure out schedules/availability, commit to a plan, discuss food vendors (pizza, cool sundaes, etc.)In progressIdeas: An afternnon in February at LC Plaza (appx 1 pm); Photos with whiteboards--discuss uniform statement "Black Lives matter to me because....", etc.; social media campaign; free food; conversation starter; increase CURA Awareness; Black History Month-- what angle do we want to take? Promotional items? Prizes? Set Date: 2/10; Plan of action: Everyone make 20 cutout Valentines, each one needs to include Black Lives Matter at the top, Quote in the middle, sign them " <3, CURA," Curamag.com on the back; Ryan and Vanessa in charge of making poster at McGinley before next week; take pictures of event; give away candy; ask them to sign poster. This friday @ McGinleyN/A
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Awareness & Building BrandWork with social media team, figure out what social media platforms they want us to focus onIn progressTumblr is out... Facebook on the decline. Talks of putting more energy into instagram and twitter.Focus on other groups; BSA/ ASILYNeed to create FB event page
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Edit: CURA & ASILY Writing LabTalk w/ Social Justice & Fundraising GroupIn progressDiscussed doing a reading @ McNally/ Housing Works, or another small bookstore. Sell merch or broadsides? N/AWhat are we going to do?; Feb/ March only time to do it.; Partner with BSA/ ASILY for this event?; Who will our audience be? Open mic?; Problem with March- we have break from 17-28 N/A; Creative writing workshop for BSA or ASILY instead?CURA & ASILY group meeting, writing lab: March 2nd @ one of their regular meetings, which happens at 2-3pm. Guided prompt led by professor Gambito. N/A
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Relationships with Bookstores, Coffee Shops, Fordham LiteraryCreate an excel spreadsheet of emails, research new up and coming storesIn progressDani has a list of emails she can round up. Will have together next week.Narrow down list, decide who we're interested in working with. Vanessa is speaking with ASILY and BSA... will wait to hear if they are interested in collaborating.N/A
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PromotionsDetermine who or what kind of company we want to potentially work withIn progressDiscusssion in early preliminary stages, still unsure if we will persue.Too short notice for table event. Maybe will revist for asily/bsa event or Harlem Renaissance event. Will be featured at Harlem Renaissance event
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FINAL THOUGHTS: We started the semester extremely ambitious. We had several aspirations. We wanted to have a lavish issue launch party, multiple fundraising events, and a bookstore event that possibly featured a reading or an open mic. We quickly realized that with our limited time and resources it was impossible to do all of that well. Main Takeaways from the semester:
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--Determine the most important events and begin brainstoriming immediately. The sooner you can pin down a venue, the better
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--Due to our hard work, hosting the Harlem Renaissance event was a success. However, it would probably be cheaper and more efficient to select an already established venue
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--$25 is far too much to charge students. For this reason we advocated for the chocolate fountain machine to make the price worthwhile for our attendees... but then that just ate into the money we could have made. $20 should be the max for future events, but ideally it shouldn't exceed $15. If the events have alcohol, attendees under 21 should get to pay a cheper price
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--The Reid Writers of Color Event always draws a huge turnout. CURA should capitalize on this and try to throw the issue launch party after that event so that staff can advertise it to the audience who are the type of people who would be interested in a literary magazine. Coordinate early on with Reid and see if they can host the event earlier in April.
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--The events team should always be in communication. Having a groupchat worked well for us, and made it possible to discuss our plans despite our different schedules.
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--It's better to focus on a few things and do them well instead of spreading yourself too thin.
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--In terms of audience engagement it is essential to build relationships with clubs on campus that share similar missions to CURA.
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--Audience engagement is impossible without the Marketing &Publicity Team.Since we do not have control of the social media accounts there is virutally no way for the events team to connect with our audience a constructive way. Perhaps next semester the events team can be in charge of the event pages (not the social media accounts as a whole)
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--Audience engagement could focus on more outreach with the creative writing classes
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