As Printed in the Quarter 3, 2004 Issue of
The Belly Dancer Magazine
And Now….A Word From Our Sponsor.
Part 1 - By Sian Lane
How many out there like to attend all those great belly dance festivals? Hey, how many of you dance at 'em?
If you're like me, you like those festivals like you love your dog. And that's a lot. If you're like me, you dance any place, any time, anywhere you can. And that's a lot.
But there is another side to the story, or event, if you will. The side of the sponsor. Fortunately for you (or unfortunately maybe, depending on your view), I've decided to let you in on some back stage, behind the scenes, stage crewing, get-your-butt-outta-the-dressing-room-right-now secrets. You are doomed to listen to me, for I am sponsor.
My name is Sian, and I am one third of The Babylonian Ensemble. The Babs sponsor the Mediterranean Fantasy Festival in Seattle, WA. We've done it for seventeen years, and that's a big chunk of time, my friends. And boy, have we learned some valuable lessons along the way. Some hard. Some funny. Some maddening. Some wonderful.
But even before we started our festival, it seemed that the fates threw us backstage for one reason or another. We've gophered and lugged, pinned and hustled our butts as stage crew for an incredible amount of other sponsor's events as well as our own, later. If I may say so, we earned quite a reputation too. Hey… stop laughing.
These days, I've become quite the world traveler too (on Gaylene's coattails). I've experienced the giddiness of not only attending and vending, but also working backstage at Rakassah, Summer Rakassah, and Rakassah East. Wow, is Rakassah huge!
Anyway, I've done my share of working at festivals. Big ones, little ones and even in between ones. So I wanted to share my hard won knowledge with you, the dancer/s.
I trust your superior belly dance spirit. You have the power to make our event sponsoring lives easier.
You want to ingratiate yourselves with the sponsors? Have them really smile when they see your name on the schedule? Have them say really nice things about you later? I can tell you how.
First things first. Sending in your application. I can't stress thoroughness enough. We place certain key words on our registration forms to elicit certain key information from you. Information that we need to have, to make things happen. Sometimes we know who's sending what, and can even make an educated guess at whats wanted. But sometimes we don't have a clue who you are (especially if the handwriting is less than stellar), or what you're telling us.
Neatness counts too by the way. Imagine this. Trying to decipher scratchy ink blots that spiral around the entire white space surrounding a registration form. Horrors - it spirals right over to the back! Now I'm hopelessly confused trying to read it.
Or picture this. Tilting the paper this way and that, squinting to see that cute sparkly lavender ink in the light from the window. Yeah, it's cute all right. We'll never know what it says but geez… it is lavender, and anything sparkly does attract us belly dancers. Gads, we're like crows with the glitz.
Or envision this. Staring at a half done form, wondering why so-and-so didn't fill in all the blanks on the form, or write clear enough so that anyone not living in their house could read it.Holy beaded belt Batman, I get a headache just thinking about cracking the code on some of those registration riddlers we get.
On the other hand, I wanna give the typed or printed ones a big smoocheroonie.
We really have tried to make the darn things as simple and as straightforward as we can, but year after year, there's always a pile of them off to the side of the table when we get done with the drawing. Slowly we filter through them. Then pass them around the table another couple of times to see if a different set of eyes might have better luck at the deciphering. Those itsy-bitsy, squiggly lines are supposed to mean something. But what? Is that a two or a five? And what is that???? (Psycho shower scene music here) - Please don't let your registration be the Norman Bates of the heap.
Keep this thought in the back of your head when you fill that application out; it's not any sponsors fault if you couldn't get what you needed, if they couldn't read what you wrote. Whew. How's that for a mouthful?
The Babs got approximately one hundred and fifty registrations last year. Nearly a tenth of those were illegible. It doesn't take a mathematical wizard to figure out the odds on us making a mistake (the Babs? valley girl 'ohmygawd' here).
We're on the constant prowl for small ways to make registration forms easier to read and understand. Making improvements as we go, figuring them out and putting them into practice. Every year, minor changes come about from
input we get from observers, questions, learned lessons, and trial and error. As soon as the festival is over, I hot foot it back to my desk and spend time updating, improving, integrating new ideas onto the Med Fest flyer.
We've tried to keep up with the high tech age too. Well, to the best of our puny abilities. We have a web site and we try to keep up to date info listed there. We have a registration form right there that you can fill out and send in. Zip, Zap, Poof! You're done. In trying to streamline things, it's helped a bunch. We list e-mail addresses and the like on the site too. So you can get in touch with us several ways. Last year, we started listing the dancer line-up on the web site too. It'll be quicker than waiting for the return snail mail, and we hope to save some for everyone on postage.
While I'm on the subject of postage… well, I wasn't really, but now I am. Those little lick 'em and stick 'em half inch squares are about equal to taping a gold bar to the outside of the envelope. Let's figure out some better no waste systems.
Get this. Every single Babylonian mail out nets about twenty percent returns. That's a mega-extraordinary number of flyers coming back to us with wasted postage. Not that we don't expect some, but gee willickers! Last year I got a change of address card in the mail from a local dancer. Mr. Sian thought I was nuts. Jigging and jiving all the way back from the mailbox. Must have been a sight for the neighbors. Not that they don't already know I'm nuts, but this must have looked extra special. That was a really long way of saying I was happy about getting that change of address card. And that dancer is probably really happy because she will get her flyer on time. I always have a binder at the festival to fill out for updated or new addresses. Lots of paper in it. Help us help you. Keep us updated as to where you are and how to get in touch.
Which sort of dovetails nicely right back around to the website. Send an e-mail with your new address, or new last name, or new dance name, troupe… whatever. And I don't even want to get into how many e-mail addresses come back as undeliverable! We'd be here all day. I would dearly love to do more of the flyer sending out across the invisible net, but the single time I tried, more than half of them bounced back.
You're always welcome to send feedback or helpful advice. We'll listen. We won't laugh… not on the phone anyway. No, seriously, if you have suggestions about how we can improve something, let us know. Somebody's always building a better mousetrap. And Babylonian mice are always willing to get smarter.
Oh yeah…Deadlines, as dreary as they sound, really do have a purpose. I know it's hard to believe. But they do. It takes time for my slow fingers to type lists and schedules and other information. Update this, update that. Get all that information back to whoever needs it, in a timely manner. Like printers, web site nerds (or mistresses), and Babylonians (definitely not web site mistresses).
So do yourself and every single festival sponsor out there, a big belly dance favor.
Please print carefully and neatly (whiteout is not a four letter word). Use dark, smooth ink, like blue or black. Hand it to your eight year-old. If he can read it, so can we. Stay inside the lines with your script and coloring. Fill all those blank spaces in (except the white space around the edge). Or try the online, printable version.
If you have a question, any question at all, CALL. We don't mind answering questions. In fact, it's a good excuse to talk on the phone. We like talking on the phone.
Phone good… sloppy registration form bad.
If it says use a 9 x 4 envelope, use it. If it says use a #10 envelope, and you don't know what it is, don't count on your good looks, just find out what it is and use it. If it says send an SASE (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope), please do so. If it says do this, send that, jump up and down, stand on your head, do it.
Any sponsor, anywhere will love you for it. I've been known to announce my own personal favorite registrations to the crowd at the Med Fest. You could be famous. Just think.
Next issue - showing up, checking in, and being prepared for time discrepancies. * Until then. Sian!
Sian Lane has been a member of The Babylonian Ensemble for twenty-seven years, and dancing for thirty-seven. She has been an active supporter and sponsor for belly dance events and shows. She now teaches in West Sea
