Re: [Harp-L] RE: Buckeye Cancelled

[Michelle LeFree <mlefree@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I had an idea for an harmonica outreach project that I made the mistake 
of blurting out to Tom Stryker (SPAH President) right after the 
Minneapolis meeting. He quickly, and appropriately, put the ball right 
back in my court and asked me to write up a proposal. I'm afraid I  
dropped the ball cold, so I will bare my soul here as partial penitence 
to Tom, just because I still think it is a good idea...

I wholeheartedly agree with the concept of breathing new life into SPAH, 
other clubs and the harmonica community at large by reaching out to the 
more youthful appreciators of music. In that spirit my idea was to staff 
and stock a relatively inexpensive portable display booth that could be 
taken to music festivals . One idea to fund this project would be to 
offer both retail and non-profit entities in the harmonica community an 
opportunity to provide advertising materials and signage in exchange for 
presence at various levels of participation in the booth. The general 
idea is to provide a vehicle for representing the harmonica in a 
positive way in an effort to introduce it and all its attributes to the 
legions of young festival goers out there.

The real hook would be to staff the booth with one or more killer 
players, expert in the particular genre associated with the given 
festival. We've all seen the droves of folks lining up to buy t-shirts 
and various and sundry promotional products before, during and after 
acts at a festivals. I imagine a pro-level player playing energetically 
in the booth in the exhibit area (at an appropriate volume, depending 
what's happening on the stage) to draw "festies" to the harmonica booth. 
I'd guess that a lot of people would prefer a new harmonica to another 
t-thirt, though obvious business details would have to ironed out to do 
that.

The spirit of the idea is to make all things harmonica more accessible 
to young folk when they are still musically impressionable/accessible. 
I'm sure some of the marketing-types in the harmonica community could 
think of a better vehicle, but IMHO there's definitely "outreach gold" 
at the music festivals.

At least that's the way I see it. :-)

Michelle