Should the Alt Slams be moved to a non Monday night?

[Duncan Shields]

Sounds like moving the alt slams is not the best idea at the moment.  All these other points that are coming up are fantastic, though! : )

[Shannon]

although lisa raises excellent points about the audience, we don't actually know that they *want* more shows

what we do know is that they like going to shows on monday, that is all we can really conclude right now

even though I am feeling saturated, its entirely possible that the audience at large is not saturated.  However, what about those that are currently writing/performing at slams?  we should ask them if they want more slam?  I do not want to see more slam, nor do I want more opportunities to slam.  However, if there were more opportunities to perform in some kind of a spoken word capacity either on the drive or outside the drive with a different audience, and different performers that is not slam, I'd be on the first bus over there! 

[Lisa]

There is an appetite for poetry in Vancouver. There is an appetite specifically for poetry as its done by the Slam and VPH. I don't mean just poetry slams. There is an appetite for spoken word artists to perform, and our shows are regularly selling out. That means that there are people who want to see spoken word who we're not serving. And, there are probably people who would be interested in spoken word, but because we are currently operating at full capacity, we don't do any advertising or publicity (other than announcements to our email lists) to get new audience members.

If the goal of VPH is: (and this is in our mission statement)

    *  Bringing forth poetry
    * Bringing forth poetry from everyone
    * Bringing forth poetry everytime
    * Bringing forth poetry everywhere
    * Bringing forth poetry in all its forms

... then it follows that we should (theoretically at least) take advantage of opportunities to produce more shows for more people, that draw in new audiences and new artists. (And I don't want to move the Alt Slams specifically. I like having the variety on Monday nights. I'm talking about adding other shows)

The alternative is to move venues so that more people can access our shows. I am not in favour of this, as we've built a great audience at Cafe Deux Soleils, they understand the work that we do, and the show is awesome there.

For me, saying that we shouldn't do more shows because not everyone will be able to attend them is like saying that we shouldn't make more of a product that there is a lot of demand for. Think of all of the things that we could do with additional door revenue. Scholarships for poets to attend professional development opportunities! Another Vancouver-based festival! Paying poets to do other projects! Etc.

I think that it makes sense to consider all of the options, for sure. But I'm in favour of more poetry, for more people, in more places.

[RCW]

I'm in favour of spreading the word and I also think we need to be careful of what our expectations are.

I agree there is probably an unprecedented interest in spoken word right now.  Shane sold out 4 of his 5 nights at the Firehall Arts Centre last week.  We will probably have a jam packed RIO Theatre for Finals Night.  My guess is that we'll have well over 300 people.  Our regular slams are selling out almost every night. 
Awesome Face packs the joint.

But we also need to assess what is working and what isn't working as far as audience goes and see what gaps we can fill rather than repeating ourselves I think. 

I think somehow if we can begin to infiltrate the west side of the city with showcases and what not then we can really see whether or not spoken word is as popular as it feels like it is.  Does that make sense?  Do we have any folks who live west of Oak/Granville/Macdonald who might know some venue owners and so on?

[Shannon]

Look to Friday Night Words as an example.  We had Tara Hardy here and the room was quite empty.  Many of the Friday Night Words shows have steller line ups and they do not fill up at all.

I think the scene is hungry for new and innovative performance poetry (such as Shane's show or the Youth show that just happened at Cultch) but they are not interested in seeing the same poets and poems that they could see on any given Monday.  If you are going to expand can it be something quite different than what we already have?  IF the scene was really that hungry wouldn't the Friday night shows and the Poetry nights at Cottage also be packed?

[Lisa]

When the Vancouver poetry slam first started, it was not packed. You have to market and publicize shows in order for people to turn up, and we haven't done that for some of the smaller shows.

Shane's show and the youth show at the Cultch both had crazy promotion. That's what makes a show successful. If we want to expand, we have to be willing to do the promo, but I think it's worth it.

Turning more people into poetry lovers = awesome.

[ms_spelt]

as someone who was there from the beginning let me add my two cents about growing the scene.
promotions is but one piece of the puzzle-and promotions happens in an assortment of ways(y'all need to read Tipping Point on this)also important is the quality of the product(which we have) an affordable price(which we have)and location location location.
INK was free,had high quality programming ....and was in the DTES.
which was of course the point.But it meant that even with agressive promotions we weren't packing the house like the slam.we turn out that sometimes was good and sometimes wasn't.As for the slam we struggled in some venues and sold out in others-promotions was the same,price the same,program the same.
monday night slams has a momentum built up from an alignment of everything that makes it work.and so promotions tends to take care of itself-but we do advertise on the highest ranked rock morning show in the city-so we haven't exactly stopped advertising either to rely on simply word of mouth.
I put IWPS on the drive because it was the heart of our core market.
should we grow poetry as far and wide as we can?
yes.
but the how of that is tricky and is never as simple as it seems.