Re: [Harp-L] RE: Buckeye Cancelled



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





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