Facilities

Who's working on this: Scott, Erok

OK, so i had a meeting with pgh filmmakers today that went really well, at least in my opinion. Basically, they have a ton of space for us, whether 100 people or 200 people show up. Essentially, they aren't using the space in august, and seem to be more than happy to let us use it..

Price: And best of all, the price is free or next to it. They didn't seem concerned at all about charging us, which is WAY different than the rest of the places that i have contacted. The only cost that they could forsee would be if they had to pay someone to come and open the space, wait around and watch it for us, and lock up afterward. they said they would appreciate $10/hr for this, but i think that we might be able to get one of our friends like ted, who lives one block away to do this for free.

Plus: Also, they are willing to have a viewing of the movie B.I.K.E. for us for free for the conference. We were talking and thought it would be a good activity on Friday night as that is when we'll be waiting around in the space for people to arrive and giving the 101 workshops. they could subsequently show it on sat and sun to the public, and they offered to do it as a fundraiser for us, which i think we could turn around and give it right back to them for the space.

Space: they said that it might be easiest for us to just take over the third floor. there are two classrooms up there that can hold about 70+ each. if we need a space to hold everyone, than we can use a new room that they just refinished that can hold 200, or one of the theaters.

Location: Very central and accessible by many buses and easy to get to by bike. also, there are lots of people that live within walking distance of this, either in polish hill, or on the same street.

Kitchen: This is the one weird thing, but i'm confident that we can work something out. believe it or not, there is a cafe in there called Dave's Cafe Obscura (witty, huh), and the guy who runs it, "Camera" Dave, is a friend of mine from coop days and is really awesome, and is a car-free cyclist himself. although it's not required, i think it would be in our best interest and a nice gesture to hire him to help cater the event, which he is willing to do. he has catered events this size by himself before, but i talked to him about us helping and he was willing to work with that. basically, the more help we can get the cheaper it will be. he's a totally down dude, and i think, considering that he can buy food at wholesale food service cost, that it could actually be the same price, if not cheaper if we get him to help us, and that takes alot of the burden off of us as well. I've eaten his food, and it is really tasty, vegan/veg, and he tries to use organic if possible. one of the ideas that we had was to have the bike blender there for smoothies.

My general gist: I think that they are totally into this. the folks i talked to were really down with what we were doing, and generally seemed to want to help out and allow us to use this resource as much as possible. I was actually overwhelved at the generosity that they gave me during this talk.

Where we're at: basically, their peops need to talk to their peops, and we need to talk to each other. I think this would be pretty awesome, not just cause it works for us, but also because we get to show off a really amazing pgh resouce/org. i'm not really sure how to proceed from here, so i'm looking for some guidance. I hope this is a good write-up, i know i forgot something, but it will at least get the conversation going.

What I need:

I. Comments from yinz.

II. Questions from yinz to ask them. i know i forgot some stuff. Please post below. when i get answers to them, i will post them.

I. Comments:

1.i think the $400-500 for this space is fantastic. yeah, it's not free, but it's totally worth it. we're not going to find a space with all of the things we need in it for a price anywhere close to this. let's do it so we can get this ball rollin. -johnny

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II. Questions for Filmmakers:

1. How much will Dave cost to cater the event?-erok

2. Do we try to get one of our friends at filmmakers to volunteer to watch the space, or just suck up the $200 bucks, and get one of our friends some much needed cash to do something that they would be willing to volunteer anyway?-erok

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***UPDATE March 22****

Here is an email that i got from filmmakers regarding this. It's not quite as sweet, but in my opinion, still sweet.

Erok,

It's a go!

I talked to the folks at Filmmakers and got a thumbs up from everyone

involved.

Aug 10-12 is locked down for you.

Let's talk money.....I was able to massage the numbers here quite a bit,

but this is what we are

looking at, in general.

$400-$500 general expense: This would cover the staff needed to oversee

everything, unlock doors, tech support, etc., as well as building costs ie

all that precious air conditioning, lights, and so on.

Gary and I have discussed B.I.K.E. film, and if we can bring it in, we can

decide how we want to charge for this. In other words, you can decide if

the conference wants to subsidize the tickets as being part of the gig, or

they can pay out-of-pocket the whopping $6 for admission. But we can work

this out to be benificial to all involved (you, us, distributor,

director).

All of that being said, this is quite a deal that I was able to campaign

for, and other non-profits normally pay MUCH more for very limited usuage

of the space, and therefore, would not be happy were they to hear about

these numbers.

You get the idea, I'm sure.

Run this by your crew, and we'll go from there.

Best,

Ross