Where did the money go?

[Rovastar]

Sorry if the question sounds harsh or maybe nosey or none of anyones business but is there any intention of disclosure of breakdown of costs for AVIT.

I have spoke to many members of teh core and although they know there individual areas many themselves didnn't know what the other areas that other members looked after.

This information I feel will help other AVIT have an idea of what it cost for an AVIT like Brighton.

Personaly I have a few questions about crertain items/amounts taht were hired. And question marks over the amount paid to performers at AVIT.

I can go into detail on each but first wonder what the general thought process is on this.

[Mbazzy]

And question marks over the amount paid to performers at AVIT.

My understanding was there was no budget to pay performers at Avit , not for performing, not for travelexpenses ?!?

[fALk]

Good that I did not start this threat :/

Where did the money go? I know that some of the money went into the cost for the hotel. I personally was offered some refund for traveling costs which was not handed out. The Brighton Center was probably a little costly as well but a public breakdown of the money recieved and the costs involved would be very welcomed and would place some confidence into the core.

Open it up please. Otherwise conspiracy theories will flurrish soon....

[fALk]

If there is money left over I would love to see this in the hand of eXhale to further take care of vjcentral and vjforums and pay for the bandwidth costs and all his time and efford.

[LEVLHED]

I don't know the individual costs of things, but I can tell you there was no money left over..in fact the core went in the hole on this one (again)...it came down to needing a certain ratio of punters in on the massjam/av night which unfortunately didn't happen:(

I can tell you AVIT NA in Chicago roughly broke even.

I really hope that we can all keep at this whole AVIT thing...we're obviously on to something here! I hope we can all keep learning and growing from this and (very soon) be able to at least consistenly break even, if not have a bit left over to donate to the cause...

[holly]

Can we ask what was the investment (obligation) to the space, and what was the ticket price? Can we also ask how many punters showed? Were there discounts for VJs?

In your opinion was the venue too large for the event?

[amoeba]

hi guys, in regards to operating costs and door prices.
My opinion and that of others that came along on my recomendation
as well was that the door price for the mass jam/av of
?10 was a little overpriced hence the limited turnout.

maybe if the door price was say ?7 or ?5
then the turnout would have doubled.
As i dont know any of the costings for the
weekend I cannot say for sure.

but as regards vj payment and discounts/guests
as far as I was aware there was none of both, and
no other performers that I spoke to got payed...is this a truism?

I did an after effects workshop with my own laptop and a
borrowed projector from the avit guys, so I hope no-one
claimed any more expenses for that workshop ;)

And did the sound system guys get sorted out for the dj's and stuff
upstairs??

I live in Brighton and up until the weekend before AVIT there were little or NO
flyers and posters advertising the event which I thought was a wee bit unprofessional, and the typos on the brouchure didnt help much !
but i do understand how difficult it was to organise the event and timing and moneys are always the delaying facters in these types of things.

I actually did a mass mailout on the wed/th/fri to all my mailing lists trying
to get a wee bit of publicity and ryan carson of BD4D.com included a review and advert in his daily postings on the thu/fri for the avit guys on my recomendation.

maybe nxt time the funding side of things should be transparent and
be available to all to see on a financial link of the avit website, so those of a conspiratorial dispensation can clearly see amounts asked for and given.

The event itself was a hit, and for all the good people that i met and subsequently made [e] contact with I am eternally gratefull.

thats my 10 bobs worth


acab23/amoeba

[syzygy]

Could a detailed breakdown of the finances possibly wait just a little while until we have sorted everything out? (for example, several of us need to get money through in order to clear the large credit card balances that allowed AVIT to take place, hopefully before the credit card companies get nasty with us)

Once everything is sorted out, we'll be happy to share the breakdown of where money was spent - as you say this information will proove really useful for any further AVITs that people plan to put on.

There will be some areas that might be sensetive. For example, some hire companies can be a little unhappy about prices agreed for one customer becoming public, and venues do not want prices negotiated for specific events to be spread around. This might mean that we have to provide a breakdown that doesn't go all the way into exactly how much each item cost. We'll do the best we can though. We may be able to provide more detail to people who really need it.

In short, we'll do our best.

One thing I will make clear is that, in my personal opinion, the only reason for making information public is to help with the planning of future events. I don't much like the slight hints of suspicion from some people on this thread that seem to say "show us the accounts because if you don't then we'll think you did something dodgy". All of the AVIT UK 2003 organisers put a lot into AVIT both in terms of time and money, in order to put on an event that was free for participants and included subsidised accomodation and travel for those who contributed to the education side of things. Even the suggestion that people in the community might think there is anything to be suspicious of makes me slightly sad.

If AVIT had been put on using money from the community then fair enough, I'd expect to have to justify to everyone what we spent. But that wasn't the way it worked. AVIT was funded by the Arts Council, Sponsors, donators and the pockets of the AVIT UK 2003 organising group. We will have to justify our spending to the Arts Council but I don't expect to have to defend our accounts to the community.

I don't mean to say that we should not be accountable to the community, AVIT is a community event after all. What I mean is that while I think it is really useful to get input about how AVIT went, what worked, what didn't work, whether overall it was worth while and so on, I don't think it is fair (or practical) for us to have to justify to everyone exactly how we spent the funding that we secured from the Arts Council and sponsors.

Suggestions for how money could be better spent for next year are, of course, another matter - the more input we have ahead of next years funding proposal the better it will be. I'll be starting a thread soon to discuss the plans for next year, which will include what things we should seek funding for.

Provided the discussion of financial stuff is constructive rather than accusatory, I will be happy to talk about it.

Dan.

[holly]

Whaaaat...? You mean you didn't make gajillions of $$$ and then abscond to Aruba with the profits???

:lol: :roll: :lol:

[neeko]

Animal farm
the sequal :jump2:

[syzygy]

Unfortunatley not - still stuck in cold, wet Birmingham... :(

Actually, I didn't know where
Aruba (http://www.aruba.com/) was until just now, but now thanks to google I know not only where it is and what it is, but also that they are putting on a five screen video extravaganza (http://www.aruba.com/news/index.html) for visitors to the island:


Visitors will be enveloped in 22-minutes of total sight and sound stimulation as they take in all the magic that Aruba has to offer on five large screens with dynamic three-dimensional effects and superb sound effects.



Guests will be transported on a journey of knowledge and exploration as "Experience Aruba Panorama" offers a movie-going experience unlike any other in the Caribbean. Boasting five enormous screens that measure 66-feet wide and 13-feet high on a 155-degree semi-circle


So maybe it is the perfect place for VJs to run off to (providing they let us play with their screens and beamers ;) )

Dan.

[littlecatalyst]

hmmmmm.......

[randomFX]

As treasurer of AVIT Uk it has been my responsibility to lead the treasury sub-committee and look after the budget...and as Dan has said we will be happy to provide general budget details to the community, plus more info to those organising an AVit.

However, this will take a few weeks as i wait for all of the invoices and receipts to come in (not helped by postal strikes in the UK :(

In the meantime i'd like to clarify a few things:


VJC will be getting all of the raffle money and a donation from AVIT UK :) - raffle to be drawn tuesday night.

Peeps who hosted workshops etc & traveled from outside the UK will get a contribution towards their travel expenses (those not yet paid will do so very soon)

It is true that we didn't get as many paying punters at the MassJam as predicted and immediately after it seemed like we would be over budget...however we did get enough to break even...thanks largely to sponsors, discounted & donated equipment, & the huge amount of free time given to us by crew & performers :D

The conference was also financially successful and puts us in a good position for the future...

one of our major problems this year was not knowing whether we would have funding till very close to the festival..this had huge implications for promotion & advertising..hence the lack of it.

This leads to my advice for anyone thinking of organising an AVIT festival...get your venue sorted first, then secure funding early...the rest will be so much easier.

ok better get back to that spreadsheet ;)

Craig

[Rovastar]

I did reply to this post last night but the net connection got lost and I lost all my typing. It was a big one too. Then I could get online for a day or two so typed more and so some of the points are a little wasted. I never wanted to accuse the core of stealing money for themselves that never crossed my mind and don't beleive that would happen.

And the thread turned into a bit of a rant anyway I?ll risk posting it. ;)

First off I know that AVIT made no money it cost the organising money. For the sake of any ambiguity I am not dissing the AVIT event at all. I know most of you involved in the Core and did my best to help out. I know there are problems on the way.

Most of what I know are presumptions on what payments /costs occurred different answers from different things.

To put a couple of minds at rest (?) The promotion for AVIT was undertaken by a 'professional' PR company. Last I heard they had not been paid (and rightly so) and maybe will be paid something. They had a good reputation and a fair whack they quoted initially too. So one would have thought they would have done a good job....alas.........

I know (some of at least) DJ were going to be paid.
The DJ thing does confuse me as we have had many chats here about DJ's wanting to get into visuals, that they are passionate about visuals, love our work, etc, etc. Yet we could not find any for this event that are willing to give up there time to perform...........

I conclude they don't care. And people may question my hard line stance on the newbies here that are DJ's that want to be a VJ. Ummmh,. Brushes and tar I know but that is just me.

I was hoping that DJ <insert big name here> launching there new (admittedly probably shit) visual combo would want to be involved. That t me would prove respect and passion for visuals?otherwise??.

Not many people showed (I suppose it was a 800+ capacity and a quarter/third full *shrug* but most I imagine of them are VJ?s or friends of VJ?s) but it was a club night in a conference centre. And sadly still looked like conference centre. It can be pulled off using a none club venue to make a club venue (I went to a *big* Radio 1 clubnight in the Brighton Centre proper (not the East Wing where we were) which worked well) but it is not all that easy.

Price yeah it was high. I suppose.

We are VJ?s remember not experience club promoters.

For all the pain that the promoters of the club night at the Leeds AVIT (Technique) put us through we at least got some money from them and didn?t work at a loss.

I feel that an AVIT event has a couple of different ?goals? for what people want out of it.

a) VJ punters (use VJ?s that go there) want to see other VJ?s work. We want to do this for honestly as cheap as possible. We are not caring as much for big name DJ?s and glitzy club environments for this. We just want to see what other VJ?s are producing. Maybe a more of a mass jab environment designed for us is needed for this. Where we sit around and have a few beers and ponder the visuals of others. This to me does not (always (??)) go hand in hand with the glitzy nightclub environment. To make other VJ?s pay ?10 just to see visuals is a little step. Even worse if you are inviting friends along that have not much interest in visuals.

For me this is a place for all to enjoy. Beginner & Experienced, Good and bad alike. Sorry to sound harsh but there were some bad visual displays there and the majority were just mediocre. Who say we don?t need showreels. ;) But we best view them.

b) A glitzy visual display with the best (and that means no fucking blue screens, windows/mac desktops, frozen images, ppl :nono: ) visuals for a big show. I honestly think we have to get in with some promoters or through us that have very good contact with visual friendly clubs/DJ?s etc.

Another idea is advertising AVIT ourselves.

Yes us. Personally I would have us advertise AVIT at the AVIT events.

I would make all VJ have to have AVIT branding in there sets for this AVIT/VJC event.

I thought was of the ideas of AVIT was to make VJ?s and visuals more in the public eye and have recognition. We should have made/encouraged the VJ?s performing have AVIT branding in there.

If you a punter at say the Beach club did you even know a AVIT visual fuelled event was taking place or did you just think that the another club night. If we did a straw poll outside of punter who would have even seen the AVIT logo? We could have had some no matter how small recognition. The club sure as hell did not have any adverting for us (VJ?s AVIT, etc) and didn?t really expect it. But *we* could advertise ourselves. AVIT logo, etc used in intelligent, artistic in our own way, hell you could even have some sort of narrative ( the idea of ?narrative? still makes me laugh) incorporating AVIT if you are good enough artist. Blah, blah.

I would even want/make VJ?s to brand their sets with the sponsors of AVIT stuff too but I just imagine the outcry of ?message/one man party political broadcast by the commie party? VJ?s. To me this gives the sponsors added value as they name will be all over the big screens and maybe, just maybe get some extra funds for the AVIT coffers. To be fair it is no skin of our noses if we do this or not but have as I said valued added branding for us/the sponsors.

I understand that the Saturday night clubs (I think 6 in all) paid us (AVIT) for having AVIT visuals there and that the performing VJ did not get paid. (So hopefully more money in the AVIT pot to add to the more then reasonable ?starting? amount that the Arts Council gave us.) Maybe I am wrong with this *shrug*.
An idea maybe would be to get more clubs involved if we did this again like this. What about the other clubs in Brighton that had.


We had mountains of flyers printed (what did last years AVIT tell us. I am still trying to roach last years supply and now I have another years worthy us ???) and so few distributed. I ?accidentally? left a few ?lying around? in the pubs I went to. It is not like we were short of them.
Other thing we did was to press CD?s for AVIT with the stuff from last years AVIT and sponsors software, etc on them. We have many of these if you want them (well 2000 were pressed I believe). I have a 30 or so if you PM me I can probably get one to you if you provide a stamped addressed envelope or maybe we could do something via denotation on VJC or something for those who were not there. *shrug*

I have no objections to paying for mountains of flyers, etc (and getting deals on more but what are we to do with them) being printed but I do object to waste. I would rather Brighton?s streets were paved with flyers, etc than having boxes full of what is now waste/roach.

Why didn?t we use our own contacts to provide a cheaper (if possible) solution. If say we posted on the forums ?Has anyone got any contacts for free/cheap projector hire? The specs we require are at least???? Maybe just maybe we wouldn?t have had to hire a few and spend a few hundred pounds of the AVIT budget. Could maybe have saved some of the money to hire a bar like Rikitik (or whatever the bar was called) where we all were anyway for just the VJ?s and have a late license, private party, visual screenings, food on, etc. There were enough of us. :)

Or say the microphones again??.

Or say the PC hire????..

Or say the wireless Internet connection cost (even though good price I think we got)??..Etc, etc.

We have a *big* community here with people in all warps of life. We do have a lot of contacts. We should use them more. If you get no response no problem I have no objections to hiring/paying (full price even) for equipment/services but trying for me is the key.

I will say again a fantastic job was done by all at AVIT it was a brilliant event. And I am not having a go at individuals or the group, really, honestly, I want to improve things. Those that I have spoke about any of these issues in person (And I spoke too many over the weekend), AVIT core members or others hopefully know there is no malice in what I write. I say things as I see them and just simply want a ?better? AVIT next year and to do that by questioning and justifying the decisions that had been taken.

Wow that is all. I probably have many more thoughts about AVIT but enough.....for now at least.

[PilotX]

Originally posted by Rovastar
[quote]
I would make all VJ have to have AVIT branding in there sets for this AVIT/VJC event.

I thought was of the ideas of AVIT was to make VJ?s and visuals more in the public eye and have recognition. We should have made/encouraged the VJ?s performing have AVIT branding in there.


I wasn't able to go to the saturday night clubs, due to a clashing gig in brum that I had to do, but I understand that there were i-balls at each club (the things that didn't work on the firday as explained elsewhere by Red) with avit branding and vj names on them.. I understand your point re branding and sponsors, and it's something to consider, but should avit be restricting or imposing conditions on peoples sets? personally I would rather give people a free hand in what they want to show, and let them decide whether to use the avit logo.. with paying sponsors it's either use them or don't I think, because we couldn't get them to pay for it, and then not have it, but we wouldn't want to give it away free. and I think a deal whereby they pay extra for each vj who agrees to use it might be a bit complicated for us..


We had mountains of flyers printed (what did last years AVIT tell us. I am still trying to roach last years supply and now I have another years worthy us ???) and so few distributed. I ?accidentally? left a few ?lying around? in the pubs I went to. It is not like we were short of them.
Other thing we did was to press CD?s for AVIT with the stuff from last years AVIT and sponsors software, etc on them. We have many of these if you want them (well 2000 were pressed I believe). I have a 30 or so if you PM me I can probably get one to you if you provide a stamped addressed envelope or maybe we could do something via denotation on VJC or something for those who were not there. *shrug*

aye, but it's so hard when (i'm making these figures up btw) 5000 flyers cost say ?200, and 10,000 cost ?250 to only get 5000. as for the cds, I don't know how many were pressed, but it seemed like a good idea. we have some of the leftovers and having been giving them out in the workshops we do with school age kids to any who are interested.. so they have ended up in the hands of the kinds of people we really wanted them to get to.


Or say the microphones again??.

Or say the PC hire????..

Or say the wireless Internet connection cost (even though good price I think we got)??..Etc, etc.

aye, point taken re mics. we decided that to make things simpler it would be better to hire pcs in, have someone else bring them all there and not have to worry about who's turning up when and if people have forgotten them or can't bring them..
I don't think we could have got a better deal on the internet connection, unless someone here owns a streaming company.. other things like fastfolds, beamers etc.. most were borrowed, the bigger screens/projectors we hired.. anyway, the general point is taken.. sometimes there just isn't the time to be organising 10 people bringing a pc each for use in the workshops.



AVIT core members or others hopefully know there is no malice in what I write.
we know :) and appreciate the comments (mostly ;) )

[sleepytom]

the hire vs borrow discussion is interresting.
personally i think it is nessacerry to hire in some gear so that the confrence looks profesional - sure we could borrow a lot of this gear but it is much easyer to hire stuff in and have stuff that looks nice and works ok - borrowed gear is a nightmare because it often falls through at the last min

also i don't really see what this thread is getting at - the confrence was funded by the arts council - we got money from them to do this event and we spent the money on putting on the event. sure we could of spent les money and done a diffrent (more scrappy) event . but they gave us the sum that they did and we spent it in the ways we had planned to.

we could not of spent money saved in the daytime on paying vjs from the evening events as these events were finacialy independent from the daytime stuff.

[Rovastar]

PilotX,

The point on the hiring of stuff was that maybe, just maybe, we could asked around a bit for the hiring of stuff. Who knows maybe someone worked in a PC hire company on these very forums, etc. :)

I think it would be too much of a headfuck and ballache to have everone bring there own PC's for the workshops. Not as professional too.

It is good that you plan to provide in general the breakdown of costs. I really think that people organising other AVIT's will see what is involved.:eek:

Interestingly (and slightly surprising to me) those I spoke to about the playing AVIT branding (and even sponspered logo's etc) we all for it. ANd that was some of those lefty eco warriors types like Unj and Littlecat. ;)

To me if it helps the event and helps out other VJ's and the scene then they are ok. I know there are different viewpoints on this but to me the screens are one form of avertising that we can use artistly and constructivly and at little cost to us and high preceived cost to teh punters/promoters. I know it does not always work as easily that way but it is another interesting idea.

mostly ;)

Sleepy,

I agree with what you say about hired stuff I was more for using our contacts here to hire things. I don't care if it computer were hired from Hire intelligence or another professioanl PC hire company.

Part of this thread was a little bit of a rant. Part was to clear up any questions that people had been thinking/mentioned.

[LEVLHED]

500 cds were made

[complexvisuals]

Is it really anyones business if AVIT made or lost money, or where the money went. The only reason you have a right to know is if you invested money, are owed money or you lent money to AVIT. Other than that I dont think anyone really has a right to question the books.

I dont feel that I have a right to.

Cian

[holly]

Cian, don't get mad. Of course this is a touchy subject, but if there is no accounting then future AVits will continue to make the same mistakes, and possibly miss the successes, of previous AVits. There is no way to do this without spending personal money. I know Brighton was partially state sponsored but that is extremely unlikely in the States, so an idea of what kind of money was spent for what gives the next organizers at least a passing idea of what to expect. It's not about blaming the past organizers for their learning process.... We are trying to determine what is an appropriate "launch level" for future AVits. There is bound to be dissapointments and burnout if the goal is set unreasonably high and the turn out is less than hoped. Better to have too crowded events than empty bowling alleys, eh?

Too many flyers? Not enough punters? What's wrong with this picture? Flyers in a VJ's hand does not result in flyers in Punters' hands. I've learned that easily enough. VJs are the worst promoters around.

I like the idea of selling the leftover CDs as a fundraiser for VJC/AVit. That sounds cool.

Let's keep it positive people. No need for secrecy, and no need for full disclosure. This isn't a court hearing, it's a fishing trip. Fishing for info and advice....

[charlielangridge]

Originally posted by Rovastar
Or say the microphones again??.


In the panel discussions there were only 2 mics for a reason. This was to stop massive arguments erruptuing. This worked. I wont comment on money (since it's not my area) any further less to say the collective core has some amazingly useful contacts, (some of which i could well be unbeatable), but if anybody else has contacts, why didn't you contact the core organisers?

[unjulation]

couple of points mainly leveled at rova

1) you ever call me a lefty eco worioer again ill come down to london and show you how much of an eco worior i am by bring my own personal land fill of brew cans ;)

2) las6t year did not make mony and most peeps came out with a loss

i would agree with complex that the figers shouldnot be made publick but if peeps need financell info based upon doing an avit then they will be made availible on and indervidual basiss/request

[holly]

Well, Unj. I agree that the nickels and dimes are only going to lead to resentment of out-of-pocket expenses. Those who put up money with no expectation of being repaid would easily (and rightly) be offended by any attempt to fully account for expenses.

BUH-uut..., if the financial differences of large venues vs small (for example) will never be explored, how can a healthy concensus be drawn from a huge group like VJc/f? If everyone believes that a big conference center venue is the only way to go, yet only a few know it is financially unviable to rely on punter-ticket support, we could constantly have arguements about "the direction of AVit", etc. Likewise, there is a point where too many small venues would be worse financially than concentrating resources at a single location. I'm just using the multi/single venue as an example. I think it remains to be seen where AVit will go over time.

Alot of useful info has already been discussed, like: is it worth the extra 50? for another 5000 flyers that won't be distributed...? Maybe, maybe not, but obviously information is good to pass on. These are issues we come up against even in our small NYC parties. Things like postage and publicity can be the biggest expenses on any event, but if they are not providing a return for the money spent alternatives must be found.

[elbows]

I dont regret the 500 cd's at all, nor the flyers. Nature of printing costs mean that if you are gonna do a flyer etc you may as well get quite a lot of them.

Generall one of my biggest tips for any future avits across the world is to try and get as accurate attendance estimates as possible in advance.

Workshop booking forms were able to give us some indication, but they went up late. I would suggest trying things like getting people to pre-register on the internet if they plan to attend, or something else that has the same effect.

I mean we had well over 100 VJs apply to perform at the event, I guess this probably made us think there would be more people overall than there actually were.

I really cant bring myself to talk in detail about any failings of other companies whose services avit used, because we enter the world of commercial sensitivity, as with much of the money issues, its terribly sensitive. Just look at the thread about streaming to see what can happen, avit certainly does not need ugly scenes or business relationships to be soured in a brutal public way, or company people to feel forced to justify everything they did in minute detail. My personal philosophy with money etc is one of total openness, but this does not seem to be the way the world actually works, so it causes problems. In my world all shops etc would have to show the profit they were making, lol, but this requires a different attitude from everyone about money, and it isnt going to happen really. In my world Im happy to bring up and talk about any of my personal faults and failings, but I just cant apply my personal philosophy to the capitalist business world because I know it will cause ugliness.

Anyway, the other thing I think Ive learned about AVIT is regarding the people who attend. We have tried to be all encompassing with a bit of a "one-size-fits-all" approach at UK AVITS so far, aiming to do things that would interest VJs, the public at the same time. I think there should be a greater degree of seperating parts of the event for specific audiences, and thus compromising less and hopefully doing better at drawing in the public. I would have the majority of the daytime program setup for vjs who pre-register, a few daytime events tailored to people from other industries, such as djs who want to get into it, the press, other artists who want to use vjing to show their art, etc. Then I would have some specific public events which are done completely with the non-vjing audience in mind, and promoted in the kind of flashy-mainstream way and paying recognised musicians/artists or whatever to put on a awesome show that average humans might want to see. I would take the basic design of brightons massjam/multirig and have that as an event for vjs and other interested parties, rather than the public at large, and this one can then be vj-centric and can have some vj battles, not be worring about low punter turnout etc.

Still I feel that so many conclusions Im reaching are a bit obvious anyway really, and really the fact is that any avit held anywhere is going to be largely shaped by what resources are realistically available. For every 1 thing we could of done differently, I see about 3 or 4 that we really had little choice on, limited by either money, timescale, venue, contacts, amount of outside help offered etc etc.

Regarding hire of equipment, number of people running the event, we really did as much as we could. Couldnt think of a way of getting any more people to volunteer equipment, we did really well as it was, lots of kind help, its just inevitable that plenty of stuff will need hiring anyway. I think hiring the workshop PCs was the right thing to do, it ensured consistency and no hours lost due to missing or unreliable pc with all different specs being lent. If there were 100 people from Brighton involved with avit, Im sure we would of had enought, but when it actually comes down to it resources end up spread thin, I spent hours finding enough VGA cables, even though there were shedloads around, we were doing a lot at once.

Ive seen 2 UK avits now and seen the number of people helping increase, but at the end of the day there simply havent been enough people donating hundreds of hours to the cause. I know there are lots of people in the community who would like to help in millions of different ways, but Im guessing part of the problem is they dont have hundreds of hours to give, just a bit here and a bit there.

Ive been desperately trying for more than a year now to make the avit communication structures better because its a bit of a nightmare keeping everything tidy and effectively communicating with everyone about an ever-evolving project. So my main activities are behind the scenes working on internet stuff that might help. But to make a complete avit system from scratch is a very large project, and i can only find hundreds of hours not thousands. I cant find an out-of-the-box project management system that works well on the internet and that everyone involved can get to grips with properly.

So, Im sitting here after my 2nd avit and my mind is full of ideas about how an efficient system should be, and how it should increase the openness and participation between avit and the wider community, and how it should also enable anybody in the community to be able to take on some task, however small, and all this work with great communication and stuff. Its do-able, but its a multi-person multi-year project. The ideal is that this system is available to anybody who wants to run an avit anywhere in the world, it is like a support package that is built on the experiences of everyone ever involved with an avit in the past.

It could potentially save thousands of hours of peoples time whenever there is an avit, because the jokes about the lack of efficiency of committee style decision making have some merit. Yet there is no way we would want control to go to less people, we need to be doing the opposite and widening things, but this requires some system to avoid us getting bogged down. Theres hundreds of discussion threads aroud these forums that show how stuff can go on pretty much forever unless some structure or specific people bring it to a conclusion. Anyway lots of decisions have been made over the years that will not need to be gone over in quite such detail in the future, need to ensure this learned knowledge is a community asset rather than being locked in specific individuals minds.

Well, that was some ramble. Probably cos I havent really posted since avit Brighton, which incidentally I got so much out of that I found the next day that my faith in humanity had been restored quite a lot by the event! There was no specific thing, it was some kind of strange community-related phenomenon that I do not pretend to fully understand, but in a nutshell there was far more good than bad at avit, and it made me smile inside :)

[TechnoLust]

Originally posted by Rovastar
Another idea is advertising AVIT ourselves.
Yes us. Personally I would have us advertise AVIT at the AVIT events.
I would make all VJ have to have AVIT branding in there sets for this AVIT/VJC event.
I thought was of the ideas of AVIT was to make VJ?s and visuals more in the public eye and have recognition. We should have made/encouraged the VJ?s performing have AVIT branding in there.


This is exactly in line with my rant about cohesion in the "sampled vs. self-created visuals" discussion thread!!

-TL

[scientifikent]

This is just a quick idea based on the rest of this thread, and is meant to get a response so please keep cool and don't flame me...

Why not charge non-core VJs who show up for classes? They are getting a lot, from education to more tangible goods like the demo CDs, and potentially even more. Many are already paying $500-$1000 up in transportation and accomodations; another little bit probably isn't going to make a big difference. If $10 for the MassJam was too much, why not charge $5 for the MassJam and $25 for the classes?

Maybe this is my American / capitalist streak talking, but it seems reasonable to charge these people anywhere up to $50 to come, register, get a bagde, program, cd, tshirt, and take classes. Any other expo type event I can think of that features education charges. And often, they charge a lot, hundreds to thousands of dollars. Usually there is teired pricing based on what you get access to, as well as free events that are open to all.

I just bring this up because obviously money is an issue in putting on an event like this, and I want to hear peoples' reactions. This is probably more of an issue outside of the UK, where funding is more difficult to come by.

So, how much would you pay to come to AVIT? Also, anyone know about the legal or tax issues involved with charging for it? Or is it more of a funding issue?