Holiday Music Concert(s)

[Siltharan]

As Bri pointed out earlier, it seems as though we have... a ton of Christmas music. As we get closer to Christmas, perhaps it's time to start setting up some concerts! I believe Yulefest is starting on the 18th (someone correct me if I'm wrong), and I'm off work then as well. I can also perform in a concert tomorrow all day or Tuesday evening if anyone wants to do a smaller-group/alt concert. Cue Bri with the setlist! :P

[Briallan]

I could bring my alts to an impromptu concert at almost any time -- I haven't personally done any planning for yuletide concerts since I was sort of absorbed in the planning for the housewarming and KWL gigs over the past couple days.

As far as our 'main' yuletide concert (or concerts), I would propose we decide soon on when they would be.

One issue about timing: one effective way of reaching audiences is to announce the concert on LOTROArtists.com, since I have the impression that many LOTRO players who are into the music scene check that site to see which bands are playing and when. However, I can't make the announcement on that site, I can only send them mail and a tweet and request that they announce our concert -- while they have announced both of our previous public concerts (which was certainly cool), there has been a lag of several days before the time I sent in the request, and the time they added our info to their calendar and retweeted my tweet. So, I would recommend that we plan concerts maybe a week or more ahead. Or, that we simply have weekly or biweekly concerts on set days (e.g., every other Friday at 9pm), so that I could just tell our regular schedule so they could just update their calendar once with our concert routine.

I am also not totally clear on where we should play -- the Yuletide Festival occurs in the four freep regions just like the fall festival, but there is also a special site called Frostbluff -- where should be play? Some issues about this are unclear to me -while it seems that Frostbluff would be a cool place to play - do people have to pay to go to Frostbluff? once they are there, will they be too busy questing to listen to music (especially if they have to pay to go there).

Anyway, I propose that we have 1 or 2 concerts of our holiday songs, and that they occur during this "extended" weekend, maybe between now and Tuesday -- though Tuesday is XMAS eve, so that might be pushing it, though I prolly will be doing family stuff at home, so could prolly even do it Tuesday if it didn't take too long. The benefit of doing it later would be that we might be able to get the concert(s) announced on LOTROArtists.com IF we decide early enough before the concert date. Band members please respond as to (1) what dates in that range you could play, and (2) if you think we should have one concert or two. I would like to decide early enough to announce the concerts on LOTROArtists.com .. and I just found out there's a player events forum we could announce it on as well.

I AM up for additional impromptu concerts if peeps want to do that, and I can bring my four band members to them. I will prolly be on many evenings this week as I am still off school, but have various RL holiday stuff going on as well so prolly not every night.

ARRGGH .. this is annoying... how do I tell spellchecker that prolly is a real word?

[Briallan]

One more issue about promoting band activities (really goes beyond just holiday concert, but maybe this is a good time to bring it up):

I've been thinking about how to broaden our fan base: one thing we can do is, when someone expresses an interest in the band, take their name and put it our mailing list -- before concerts, we could mail those people with the concert information, and maybe the word could spread if they tell their kinmembers, for example. I've started to compile such a list -- well, it's small now, but I have hopes of growing it :) -- and I think it could be cool if other band members did the same -- you can just pass me the names, and I will be happy to compile them into a single list and mail people when a concert is coming up -- well, i'll get Rin to do it, since she wants to be the business manager for the band ... though sometimes I wonder what her motives are...

 

[Ice Weasel]

On location:

The four main class start areas are not as well attended during Yule as Frostbluff; the problem with Frostbluff is that it is a layered instance, meaning band members might not all be in the "same" Frostbluff unless we go in together or move layers once in Fellowship. Then we are still only performing for those players in the same layer.. and a server like Landroval may be running as many as 50 or 60 layers of Frostbluff at peak times.

I would suggest Frostbluff performances are better for the "impromptu combo" style, two to four players (alts or mains) total, playing the lighter stuff. For the big pieces, and real "bring out all the alts and strap into the rocket chair" concerts, I'd go with the usual big locations: Bree, Prancing Pony exterior, South Gate or West Gate, maybe Merchant Square (where the 3 Boar fountain is). Shire is spotty, too... Party Tree and Methel Stage are good, but nowhere near the "drive by" traffic. Might be fun to do a BIG concert at that wonderful, huge, well-lit, gloriously carved main stage in the Thorin's Gate Homesteads near the Kin House. I LOVE that stage.  Anyway, with some real advance word, I think that would be a great place to go... and have a long, complicated noise-fest!

On the Schedule thing:

All I have on the docket now is I'm tied up tomorrow (Tuesday) night, and other than that, I can find a way to be there.  In case anyone is thinking of getting me a life for Yule, I need an XXL. 

I'm also keen on performing as often as possible, so two "legit" concerts and daily Frostbluff Combos work for me. LOL

[Briallan]

Ah thanks for the elaboration: the layer thing is no real problem for us syncing up, since when you invite someone to a fellowship they will move to your layer -- the thing about audiences being distributed though is an issue, so I agree with Krokhur's idea of main concert in Bree/Shire etc. with impromptu stuff in Frostbluff.

The only issue about 2-4 person combos is that I personally have not created any holiday music for that small a group -- perhaps some stuff is available on the sites where people dump ABCs for common use.

[Ice Weasel]

I've been holding back a bit after my Motown binge...

I do have a couple of Jazz Midi sites that have oceans of small (duo to quartet) stuff... I'll hunt for 2s, 3s, and 4s.  

[Siltharan]

I can try to scramble around tonight and tomorrow night (if we were to play Wednesday night) to make a few 3-4 parters.

[Hobbelion]

You could just convert some of the existing songs we have into two or three instruments. For Silent Night, I was able to use only Lute and Flute and I think it sounds pretty darn good. Lute is always a good support instrument in conjunction with flute, clarinet, or horn.

As for scheduling, I can do tonight, tomorrow, Wednesday night, and/or Sunday night, but am out on Thursday and possibly Saturday. On the fence about Friday so if you want to do it that night, I wouldn't count on me until day of. Then on the 24th I'm leaving for Indiana until New Years Day so I can't participate in concerts that week.

 

[Siltharan]

I'm also at work in the evenings Thursday through Saturday, and possibly even through Christmas Eve, depending on the schedule I get. Yay for little night availability for my coworkers...

[Ice Weasel]

Only have 2 to add so far... Adeste4 and wassail4 in Holiday folder in my dropbox.

Been a day here... hope to have more time tomorrow.

[Raventrick]

I'm available any night this week except Friday and Saturday! No preference for location.

[Briallan]

So, it looks like the best days are Wednesday 12/18 and Sunday 12/22. Silth not exactly clear if you are free on Sunday or not -- do you know yet?

Wed there is a group (Bright Star) performing at Bree Park at 9:30 server time (Bree park is near the jail).  So, we might not want to play in Bree? ... also Wed is start of winter festival, so maybe a lot of peeps will be in Frostbluff. Maybe we could do a rock/jazz oriented theme that since it looks like we can squeeze out up to 8 toons. Where do people think we should play on Wednesday? And, 6-8 size band, or smaller group?

Sunday there are no other bands performing at 9pm -- I would recommend we do a traditional concert at Bree stage or stable that day with a 6-member band.

What do you all think of the above plan? I can do the setlists if no one else has the time for it, but if someone else wants to do it that's more than OK with me :)

I will make a decision based on everyone's input by sometime Tuesday afternoon / evening, so we can make announcments. Any other band members who haven't responded so far are welcome to play as well!

[Briallan]

Raventrick wrote:

I'm available any night this week except Friday and Saturday! No preference for location.

Hey, Raven! Good to see you back!!! Glad you can join us!

[Briallan]

So, here's another idea I was thinking of ... since there are multiple instances of Frostbluff, and if we perform in Frostbuff it would only be by random chance that they would find us, could we do something like announce that if people want to get to our instance, please send tell to X, where X is one of our characters, and then we can invite them?

In other words:

1. random person Y (who heard about our concert and wants to attend) sends tell to X, who is someone in our kin, but not someone in the band (since our band members will prolly already be raided up)
2. X does /invite Y to get them to our instance
3. X dissolves fellowship, since not needed anymore once Y is in our instance.. and there are now room for more people like Y to do the same thing

Would that work -- or am I missing something that would keep this from working? To make this work, we would need advance cooperation of some other one of our kin members -- someone who would be willing to be "X"

[Siltharan]

The invite should work, however we'd have to get everyone invited first before raiding up for the concert. And I should know about my schedule either today (if already done) or Thursday, unfortunately (off Wednesday, and the schedule doesn't get added to the website till Thursday). So Wednesday is the best bet.