The Entertainment Biz.

~ This article first appeared in the Leader-Vindicator newspaper. ~

Today my topic of discussion is entertainment and in order to successfully convey the thoughts and experiences I’m encountering I need at least to enlighten readers of two occasions that take place.

First, we host Open Mic Nights in our Event Barn.  These are monthly gatherings that have proven successful thanks to the skills, equipment, and generosity of a few people willing to give their resources so others can sing and play.  The events are free, come as you are, bring your own everything, stay as long as you like, and the format has proven itself as something good.  We collect enough in donations to cover most of the maintenance expenses for the building.

Second, my friend Mark and his family started from scratch and created Little Sprouts Farms, an outfit that finds income by selling pork, piglets (new this year), and by hosting a Fall Festival on our farm.  The Fall Festival is their big revenue generator for the year, and they spend a great deal of time planning the gathering.

Through my direct involvement in Open Mic and my indirect exposure to the Fall Festival planning, I get a chance to think quite a lot about entertainment.  Specifically, I think about this question:  How do you get people to come and be entertained?  Open Mic Night is free, for Pete’s sake, and still the crowd is not exactly robust.  In the Sprouts’ case, they’re hoping to make some money by going up against every other Fall Festival on every other farm in the area.  All things considered, that’s a tough racket.

People don’t want more to do.  Think about it: Most of the time, in your wildest fantasies, what you’re hoping for every day is a chance to do nothing and feel great about it.  So it’s weird that when we start brainstorming fundraising ideas the very first thing we think of is offering something that people, including ourselves, don’t really want.  And then we advertise it like crazy: “Hey!  HEY!  Here’s a thing to do!  It will, uh, build the community?  Yeah, that’s it!  The community!  And…beer!  Yes, beer!  You can build the community and drink beer! Local stuff!  Just please come!”

I’ve noticed everything from cat neutering clinics to national fundraisers for cancer research that feature this advertising template.  It’s pretty well worn out.  Do people get excited about something they see everywhere?  Does the language grab anyone’s attention, or is it just the easiest thing to say so it’s repeated like a lyric on a scratched record?

Now, there is nothing that would please me more than to attract a huge crowd on Open Mic Night so when Nolan takes to the stage with his piano and sings, there is a roar of energy to support him.  I’d love Andy to play a solo on his guitar and feel like a rock star because the whole barnyard is filled with people listening.  I’d feel fulfilled if Mark and his family made so much money from their Festival that they could tackle their dreams and invest more in their farm.  But what the heck do I say that A) hasn’t already been said a million times before, and B) will actually inspire someone to pass on doing nothing and come out to the farm?  Is all this fuss even worth the effort if people are burned out?

I’ve read that if something is well established and functioning as normal, the exact opposite of that established feature will also be a viable option that can be undertaken.  So I research and I do my best to create a mental image of the current entertainment landscape that everyone is exposed to.  Then I sit at night and try to imagine the opposite of “coming out and building community and drinking beer and eating food made with only the finest wholesome locally sourced ingredients”.

The opposite of attracting everyone within range of social media is actually building, by way of regular close proximity, personal relationships within an identifiable group of people which is, by necessity, comparatively small.  If beer is the ubiquitous attractant for all things fun, then remove it as a centerpiece.  Drink water if you want to.  Or milk.  And food trucks seem to have replaced Starbucks in quantity; everybody has a food truck scheduled.  So I’d say the opposite is to trust that people will feed themselves however they see fit whenever they see fit and leave it at that.

I think there is an appealing offer to be teased out:  “A group of us gets together once a month to hang out, listen to music, enjoy interesting conversation, and do nothing however we see fit to do it.  Maybe you’ll join.”

The washout of entertainment verbiage is so consistently unimaginative that I cringe at the thought of participating.  It’s an awful challenge to come up with something different to say or do because it’s unheard of and therefore difficult for people to understand immediately.  But I believe a gathering of friends has more a chance of becoming an iconic occurrence than plea for fun, and a festival of the harvest connects more closely with the benefactors of bounty (customers) than it does to fleeting thrill seekers.  Maybe if we stop trying so hard to be fun and instead try hard to be real we’ll all end up having more fun anyway.  Imagine.