Sealed with a K.I.S.S — Planning a Successful Event
Recently I was going through some old files on my computer and I came across an article that my good friend Bob Stromberg wrote several years ago. The principles he talks about are timeless and universal. When you adapt a K.I.S.S. strategy you might just realize how complicated you have made things.
Sealed with a K.I.S.S — Planning a Successful Event
By Bob Stromberg
Through some thirty years of performing, I’ve worked in a wide variety of terrible settings. Some of the worst were gymnasiums. I remember one particular time speaking from center court surrounded by several thousand unruly high schoolers. I’m not suggesting I only encountered this setting once but this time is memorable because the principal was unable to get enough attention to introduce me. After several minutes ineffectively screaming into a distorting mic he finally looked at me and shrugged as if to say, “May your God protect you.” I then walked to the center of the arena where I was tied to a 6 ft. microphone cord connected to a podium containing four tiny speakers. I should mention that the podium/speaker was made by Sears and Roebuck. Notice that Roebuck is still in the name so we’re talking early sixties at the latest. Low tech at best.
I actually nearly salvaged this event. Honestly. But a little more than most of the time, given this situation, I failed. Which was a shame because with a little good event planning it could have been different.
Several years ago I put together a contract rider spelling out some ways that a sponsor can help me to help their event succeed. I adopted the K.I.S.S. principle, a simple acrostic for KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. And it is, after all, pretty simple. All I require is that people are able to see and hear me. That’s it.
To be seen means that most often I need some form of elevation. In addition, to insure that my facial expressions are visible, I may need simple direct lighting such as a spotlight or some floods pointed in my general direction. To be heard I need an appropriate sound system for the setting. I’ve often been impressed with the effort made to meet my simple requirements.
I was hired to perform at an outdoor celebration for a new church ground breaking. Since the church did not yet exist they had no platform staging but one man had a creative idea. He owned an asphalt company and said he could create perhaps the sturdiest stage I’d ever stood upon. The day before the event he dumped a couple hundred tons of steaming black asphalt and piled it 8 ft. high before flattening the top with a backhoe and steamroller. When he finished I had a 10 X 12 ft. platform standing 4 ft. high. Unfortunately even the next day it was still hot enough to melt my sneakers. Small birds landing on the surface became disoriented by the fumes. They staggered around a bit before falling on their sides and bursting into flames. We tried to cover the surface with plywood and an old carpet but even so I lost sixteen lbs. in a forty-five minute performance. Worse yet, my instrument cord melted which shorted out a volume control and started a fire inside my guitar. Still I was impressed with the effort.
My rider has worked pretty well though apparently the K.I.S.S. acrostic has sometimes been misinterpreted to mean KEEP IT STUPID STUPID. In this regard one man comes to mind. I’ll refer to him as Mr. I Bet I Can Ruin Your Show. He’s the man who thought a wireless mic meant a portable blow horn with a shoulder strap. Think Viet Nam war protests and your conjuring the correct image. His banquet was being held in a large room normally reserved for auctioning hogs. But the problem was not smell. The problem was size. The room’s dimensions seemed just a little smaller than those of my hometown though the ceiling may have been a bit higher. I thought I could see stars. The lighting was provided by a strip of neon lights somewhere up in the clouds. I think the bulbs were Sylvanias. I’m pretty sure the clouds were cumulus.
Fortunately I didn‘t require elevation as the enormous hall was set for only six tables of ten people each. Unfortunately, the back half of each table was still unable to see me for the massive balloon centerpieces blocking their view. If they’d connected a lawn chair to any of them they might have floated away. Which, in this setting, was just about what I felt like doing.
I hope we can work on an event together some day. With a little careful planning, I think we can pull it off.
More from http://thegrablegroup.com
- How To Make Your Event Completely Flop – by Bob Stromberg
- True Love by Bob Stromberg | The Grable Group
- Jeff Allen’s Journey from Sadness to Joy, Joy of Family Life
- How to Lead a Successful Youth Ministry
EVERYone has felt this in a relationship.
Go 2 His Myspace
Forex – China’s July inflation spikes up amid floodsForexTV.comForex (or FX or off-exchange foreign currency futures and options) trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. …and more » View full post on forex – Google News Tweet This Post
I think Thomas the Steam Engine might be a "swing" voter, if you get my blatant insinuation…
Firearms for Sears & Roebuck were produced by several different manufactures around the turn of the century, Marlin, Stevens,and Savage all produced rifles for Sears& Roebuck,J.C. Penny and Montgomery Wards at one time or another…
You best bet is to check with a company called Numrich Gun Parts Corporation in West Hurley, New York. They stock thousands of parts for antique and discontinued rifles, shotguns and pistols. They are the largest such parts distriubtor in the U.S. They also have a cross reference chart that will allow you to determine if your rifle was made by a specific company and then reference the part numbers. If these people don't have it, chances are they don't exist any more….Check them out….
*e-gunparts.com or Customer Service Inquiries (845)679-4867 Or Toll Free 866-NUMRICH (866)-686-7424
Boppies aren’t beanbags.
Maybe you don’t call ~50k motorized combat units and several thousand casualties a “full-scale invasion”, but in that case we have little basis for discussion. The comparison with Taiwan is not “spurious”, sorry. Claiming jurisdiction over an area without effective administrative control is not the same as having a territory as an integral part of your empire. The Qings exerted, as I said, various degrees of limited control over the territory, only managing to actually reassert themselves for a brief period in 1909. > Taiwan’s legitimacy comes from democracy, While I agree with you on that point, it’s not the case according to the PRC. Look, I’m not going to discuss whose autonomy/independence is legitimate or not for whatever reasons. And I think we’re at an impasse, this is pointless.
The speaker is not that necessary, people dont use such tiny speakers seriously enough that it warrants such a design that adds bulk, normally a good internal speaker is enough. Unless it slides the other way to reveal a keyboard its just a gimmick to me and ultimately not very useful.
If you don't like Whitey from the good ole USA then why are you dating him?
MOVE ON
Eh. That’s nothing. I dropped acid pretty often in high school, but never came home on it. This time though I must’ve gotten some really good shit because it was two days later and my parents were calling me all freaked out because I hadn’t been home in days or even called, but I was still tripping balls. Seeing things. The whole nine yards. I’d had no idea soo much time had passed. It seemed impossible to trip for two days on two hits. Anyhow the tone of alarm in their voices made me run right home as fast as I could, just to assuage their fears. When I get there though, they’re just sitting there watching ‘The Hunt For Red October’, and laughing their asses off. Not even upset. Not having seen the flick before, I just sit down and think “Must be pretty funny…”. Dear lord. It was scary as fuck, but they just kept laughing at even the most perilous scenes. This went on for about two hours, before I announced that I was tired and going to bed, but my dad completely out of his normal ‘nice guy’ character stands straight up, gets in my face and says “SIT DOWN! It’s a school night, and you can’t go to bed now!” So I cower back down onto the couch, and watch the whole movie trying to judge when I should laugh by their laughter, and trying not to want to rip my eyeballs out. “Gotta play it straight man”, was all I could think. When it’s over, they tell me: “Oh… By the way your friend Bob called, and wanted to know if you’d dropped that acid yet, because he thinks it’s bad shit.” Bob got an ass whipping the next day, but I do appreciate my parents attitude about it. The only trouble I ever got into over that incident was being forced to watch that fucking movie. Apparently the terror they saw in my eyes was enough. I still hate submarines with a passion.
#PNut been in school for 3 years and talks better than my high schoolers. SMH