Weekend Review: festival overload (28. June 2010, 01:05 by Steve Dunkelberger) ~
One thing can be said about the weekend that was. There were apparently too many festivals for T-town to handle.
The Speakeasy Arts Cooperative’s ode to the moon on Saturday, Lunar Stations, fell victim to low attendance caused by the host of other festivals the weekend offered. The festival dedicated to the first of two lunar eclipses in 2010 was the shoestring art house’s last ditch effort to gain some $600 needed to keep the lights on and the doors open. The effort failed.
The doors will close indefinitely starting Tuesday since the power is set to be shut off. While there was music, tarot card reading and just plain artsy stuff, money just wasn’t there.
Also on the bill during the weekend was Taste of Tacoma at Point Defiance Park, the sixth annual Urban Art Festival at People’s Park and Hempfest, at Wright Park.
Toss in after parties, at Hell’s Kitchen, Doyle’s Public House and The New Frontier Lounge, and the crowds were just too thin to trickle to Speakeasy. The capacity crowd at the Swiss on Saturday to see the cover band Kry didn’t help either.
All told, fun was had, just not enough fun to keep electricity flowing… at least in the short term.
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This is not good news. Speakeasy Arts Cooperative has given so much to downtown over the last several months. Angela has also put so much of herself out there for downtown. I’m starting to believe downtown isn’t much of an arts kind of place.
1 | Posted by crenshaw sepulveda | Jun 28, 10:38 AM
Maybe they can flip the speak easy into a space for the spaceworks program?
2 | Posted by RR Anderson | Jun 28, 01:30 PM
They shouldn’t invite thier friends to a fundraiser to drink the booze and cost the event money instead of MAKING money. There should be “events” and there should be “fundraiser events”. The two should be seperated completely.
They need a small board of directors that DOES NOT consist of the artists in the group. Well, possibly one person to come back and report to the artists what’s going on on thier side of the fence. This board should be the community leaders and those with the means to help fund and put on “fundraiser events” at Speakeasy. They should not be able to call the day to day operations of the place – just the business side.
I know artists WANT art to not collide with business, or yuppies, or whatever but that is realistically impossible.
4 | Posted by Jesse | Jun 28, 03:57 PM
… also, they had no donation reciepts when I went there. So, no tax write-off for donors and stuffing checks and cash into pockets of members looks bad. It looks REALLY bad. They needed reciepts and envelopes so the money looks like it’s going straight to the bank — not someones college tuition, PBR, or lunch at Paddy Coyne’s or something.
Most importantly aout fundraising, noone will ever EVER come forward and volunteer money. You have to corner them and ask them face-to-face with donation card and reciept in hand. When they say “I’ll giver it to you later all filled out” you say “I’ll wait for it now so I don’t miss ya later.” Having a can by the door insures a failure.
I was really hoping they’d survive…
5 | Posted by Jesse | Jun 28, 04:06 PM
Jesse, perhaps the tarot card reader saw it coming and it wasn’t worth the hassle for all that stuff.
6 | Posted by RR Anderson | Jun 28, 08:52 PM
@ oh snap!
Well, sorry Speakeasy. I went to a couple of your events and I had a great time. I could see trouble coming, but I had hoped you could work it out and hang on.
We’ll see you again, bigger and better then ever. I’m sure of it.
7 | Posted by You're Welcome | Jun 28, 11:53 PM
Yes Coma, we will all know why you left. Every person or family member you come in contact with will know why you left. Your non-stop whining makes it obvious how unhappy you are. Everyone is ready for you to go on pathetically whining about your pointless life in some other location.
Buh-bye!
8 | Posted by You're Welcome | Jun 29, 09:38 AM
I didn’t go simply because I forgot it was going on. I was going to go to the Urban Arts fest, I forgot that too.
Yes, I’m terrible about that. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached.
I really need to get one of those planner things.
9 | Posted by Thorax O'Tool | Jun 29, 10:49 AM
@ inacomain…
that last post was very ee cummings of you.
10 | Posted by frizzlebee | Jun 29, 11:24 AM
Wow. Now I remember why I stopped reading the comments.
Speakeasy, I’m sorry things are rough for you right now. We would have attended your event, but we were out of town – and missed all of the festivities of the last 16 days.
After a lovely visit to Stockholm and Finland, I’m happy to be back in T-town, even with it’s faults.
Our lives are not pathetic. Why… Prevention magazine and the American Podiatric Medicine Association (APMA) ranked Tacoma as number 19 in the Top 100 Best Walking Cities.
If podiatrists stand behind Tacoma then gosh darn it so does Altered Chords.
12 | Posted by Altered Chords | Jun 29, 02:05 PM
Podiatrists are probably just trying to get involved in the booming Tacondominium market.
Bayh now.
13 | Posted by captiveyak | Jun 29, 02:33 PM
How sad! I’d only been to the speakeasy once, but I thought it was a great idea.
Best of luck to you, Angela.
14 | Posted by MASTERblaster | Jul 1, 02:09 PM
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