Hello! My name is Bill, and I'm the founder and president of a 501(c)(3) here in Northern Idaho. For the past three years we've put on an event called "Buffalo, Blues & Brews." It's been entirely standard three/four piece blues bands like Billy D & The Hoodoos, Cary Fly, and other bands. I'm a hobby guitarist myself and have recently discovered CBG's and Diddley Bows and have built a couple of each. In fact, I gave a Diddley Bow and a CBG that I built away as door prizes at our last BBB and the crowd loved it! I would like to see the event move toward these types of DYI instruments and musicians. In my view, they kick ass just as much as regular bands, even more so because they're homemade! There really isn't a festival of this type that I've seen here in the interior Pacific Northwest. Anybody have any ideas or input about how we would go about getting musicians and their craft/instruments to attend would be greatly appreciated! Even having workshops would be awesome too! We have our BBB event in mid July...so I want to startle process now for next year. Thanks for any insight you folks might have!
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The non-profit I'm the founder and president of, called Pathways Community Development Corporation, Inc., has been 'hosting' our Buffalo, Blues & Brews event since its inception. We do most of the fund raising to do it. Our local bar, Bobbi's Reservation Blues Bar, has been involved too and we had our event in the place once, but we lost money that time because no one wanted to go to a bar for some reason. We do better with it outside. Bobbi, the owner, is the contact through which I met Billy D. Our local tribal Casino has been donating the rooms for our headliner for two years now. I helped found a chamber of commerce for our area and they are involved too. A local buffalo breeder donates a quarter for me to smoke for the event. I've approached Guitar Center and Sweetwater for sponsorship, but Sweetwater only donates to their hq area in Illinois or where ever. Guitar center talks a lot but has never actually given us any help. Our local businesses are in, and give us a couple hundred each, but our town is small with a population of about 1,000 so businesses are few. The goal of the event was to bring in money to help us do community related projects like sidewalks, supporting our elderly, and stuff but we can't seem to do anything except break even (Billy D used to come for a few hundred, now since he's got a record label under him charges us $2,300 and that's most of our take). Bobbi of Bobbi's Bar her son is a local blues guitarist, but he charges us $500 too. The area brewers club does all the craft brew, and this year we had like 60 gallons of some pretty good stuff! We need to keep our costs low so ticket prices can be low. That's why I'm reaching out, to seek input on what we can do to make it a success and improve our community. I've been doing most of the leg work but boy I could use some help and resources! ;-)
Bill, you need to find someone to host your event, a resturant, bar or any organization. This way you have someone who can reach farther to advertise your event. Here in St. Louis our host is HWY 61 Roadhouse resturant. The owner, Bill also, pays for entertainment and uses his suppliers to get items we need to put on the fest. Myself and Smilingdog do all the leg work around the community to get the word out locally. Sounds like alot of work, but after your first sucssessful event You'll find it to be worth it!!
Thanks! I'll reach out to the suggested members!
So you see, support for CBG feats can be worldwide; it's not limited to just yer local yokels.
There's us national and international yokels, too. ;-)