I've mentioned in passing in a couple of past posts that I am organizing something called "Earthdance Arcosanti".
Well, consider this a bit of a catchup post. This has been in the works for nearly a month and a half now.
The whole thing started during the 90th. Michael Gosney, one of the board members of the Cosanti Foundation, struck up conversation with me. He also happens to be one of the directors of something called the Earthdance Network. He explained to me, having been impressed with some of my work for Arcosanti, that he'd like to see an Earthdance festival happen at Arcosanti, and that I seemed to be a perfect person for organizing such a thing.
I didn't know what Earthdance was—later, I learned it was a grassroots, global festival that originally started in the 90's, and had grown to include nearly 300+ locations in over 60 countries. It was all synchronized on the same date, almost on the same time. Most of the proceeds go to charities and the like.
I appreciated the fact he thought so highly of me, but kind of laughed it off. On the heels of the 90th I was worn out, burned out, and stressed out. I didn't want to help produce another festival, much organize it entirely from the ground up. The 90th had been a huge headache in so many ways. Though I realized later on that this would be my chance to "re-do" the 90th, and in my own way—to have everything nailed down almost a month in advance. to skip all the mistakes there seemed to be from behind the scenes, and basically make just as successful a festival with fewer resources, less stress, and better results. A "lean alternative" if you will.
Well. At the time I didn't give Michael's offer a second thought. Though I found he was a tenacious person—he contact Brian Fritz, a DJ and also an Arcosanti resident. Brian was convinced and decided he would head it up, and approached me with the offer from Gosney again. At this point I realized that if Brian was going to go through the proper channels and make the festival happen one way or another, I wouldn't want to be by the sidelines. So I accepted the offer (at the time I felt like I was getting sucked in, for better or worse), and Brian and I became "Team Earthdance Arcosanti" so to speak.
The following month was a steadily growing fury of brainstorming, conceptualizing, planning, conversating, networking, and politicking. I worked up a logo, a modified version of the official Earthdance logo (a spinning globe on a lotus, which I turned into a brown apse on a fiery-red, agave-like plant), and a general budget. Our plan was to not just have a festival for the fun of it, but to make the Cosanti Foundation a bucketload of money. From the beginning, the event wast to benefit the future construction of Arcosanti.
Back then, getting Flam Chen as one of the headliners was just a glimmer in the eye. But Paul and Nadia, the nervous system for the performance collective that is Flam Chen, were open to the idea. And this time we wanted to pay them for their work, however small it might be. They agreed to mark the date on their calendar.
Soon, getting together the headline lineup followed: William Eaton, a familiar face at Arcosanti and a two-time grammy nominee, who could bring a finer touch to the event and set it apart from the usual rave reputation Earthdance festivals tend to carry. Then came Ploy, who also played at the 90th and are good friends of Brian. Finally, Metrognome, an accomplice of Flam Chen was included as part of their group.
The overall budget was approved by Operations and the various managers at Arcosanti. After that, the event was official, but Brian and I were left to plan the event almost completely by ourselves. It probably wouldn't have worked any other way—no one, including us, wanted to do another 90th. But I had faith that it wouldn't be, in terms of the headache and sheer labor. Cosanti Foundation would or benefit from the event, but would not technically organize it. This gave us a lot more creativity and flexibility than we could have gotten otherwise. For certain things we had to go through the typical channels, but as people saw how we were organizing it (and how early we started—more than a month before the festival's date we had teams of volunteers, responsibilities, logistical structuring, and the directors of each team outlined and all but set in stone), they began to have faith that everything would be just all right.
Over this time, the festival has grown to being more than just a music event. While it is only noon to midnight on a Saturday, we will have multiple installation artists, Flam Chen will perform constantly almost the whole day, we will have vendors, and possibly a resident art show. Weeks ago I produced and uploaded an Earthdance Arcosanti website specifically for the event, which most people in the administrative office balked at when I first threw out the idea—the Arcosanti site alone has been a year-long project, with very little to show for.
In the end, it just comes down to know-how, timing, and organization.
I have had a complete blast. It has been a ton of work, and most of it has gone by so fast that I didn't even tell I was having a ton of fun doing it. Over the course of logos, fliers, web banners, and posters, a full brand and identity was created for the event. Promotional materials are and have been nested in Sedona, Flagstaff, Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Prescott, and Tucson. A social networking component has been in process and growing over the past month as well. An online admissions system was coordinated and put online about two weeks ago.
It is a little under a month before the festival starts. I'll be creating an installation in the center of the Vaults for the event. About the only things that have to be done now are creating that installation, filling volunteer spaces, and putting the finishing touches on the event logistics. I'm hearing rumblings of the kind of performance Flam Chen is planning, and it will be nothing short of bombastic (in many senses of the term, more on that at a later time—rumor has it they'll be bringing their latest toy Paul has created, dubbed the "Fire Cannon").
It has been a great blast. Brian has taken care of promotion and performer coordinating, I've been promotional design and event planning. Logistics has been covered by both of us, as well as interfacing with the Arcosanti community. From what I can guess, there is a lot of groundswell behind the event, despite that another Earthdance is happening in Phoenix. We'll only know how well a job we did promoting when the day of the event comes.
The anxiousness of "I hope it works" is starting to set in. At the same time, it is satisfying to know that, at this stage, we've done almost all we can to make this event everything it could be and much more. I'll be damned if we don't get 300 or so people, which is what we've been aiming for. But even if we didn't we've designed the budget so that it can scale down to the minimum.
So if you live in Arizona or are thinking of making a roadtrip… think about where you want to be on September 26, from noon to midnight. Because, if everything goes as planned, it will be a night to remember.
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