CLERIC’S NOTE:  This was originally a 3-part series I published for Firepedia.com.  Firepedia was hacked, and the article was lost, so I’m reposting the whole thing here just for security measures.

In January 2011, Alex Hernandez (stage name: Artista) gave me a call on the phone.  Artista is Fire By The Palm’s talent recruiter and community development go-to guy, and he had an idea…

Alex Hernandez, aka "Artista." But his friends call him Scuba Steve

But before we get to that, you need some backstory.  You see, I can’t really travel to train.  I went broke in the recession and am still struggling, now with two young kids as well, so I’ve never gotten a chance to see global flow legends up close because none of them ever come to Miami.  So no Firedrums, no Burning Man, no $3000 Costa Rica or Bali master workshops with modern-day poi godfather Nick Woolsley, I can’t even realistically hope to get to Afterburn or Preheat, and they’re in my home state.  I’ve got youtube and tons of DVDs from Circles of light and others, but there’s nothing like training in person.

Alien Jon is one of my all-time hero instructors, I still train with Encyclopoidia volumes #1 and #2, and he’s just freakin’ awesome – a rich trilogy of flow, tech, and self-amusement and I consider myself far short on at least two of those qualities.  Between him, Zan Moore, and Nick Woolsley, I was taught via DVD virtually all the moves I knew through the first formative years of honing my flow.  Through Nick (Hi Nick!), I was put in touch with Alien Jon.  DUDE!  Maybe he’s coming to town?  Can we train with him?  This would be a friggin’ DREAM.  We started direct talks – what an awesome guy – and worked out a few details on classes, class prices, couch-crashing, dates, etc.  We also drafted up contracts and revenue splits, etc (more on that later).  I knew the workshop wouldn’t make a lot of money to the organizer, but I get to meet a hero and train and not leave town, so woot woot, right?

Our unassuming hero

The crown jewel of this workshop was the venue we scored.  We hooked up with the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens, and it was with that awesomeness, along with the celebrity of AJ, upon which we would build the coolest and most successful flow arts workshop EVAR.

But it was not meant to be in 2010.  You see, AJ was going to do this Orlando gig, then he was going to come to Miami from there.  BUT, AJ was going to Orlando with Burning Dan – and then Burning Dan died – so the gig evaporated, the workshop evaporated, and to add insult to injury, we had lost one of the biggest and most positive names in the history of flow, so now we’re all grief-struck to boot.  I recap the events above with a certain amount of flip, but when we were dealing with it at the time, it was an emotionally crippling period for all involved.  Burning Dan was young for a dead guy, and WAY to good a person to be both young and dead, and that always hurts more.

AJ went to do some soul-searching, so I left him be.  I broke the news to Artista and the rest of the sponsors, with whom I had gotten verbal interest.  I then decided to let workshops go for a while and concentrate on getting more shows.

So now that you’re all caught up, we’re back to the phone with Artista:

Artista:  “Yo, man, I wanna bring in this killer instructor, Aileen Lawlor.  She teaches contact staff”

Cleric:  “Meh… Never heard of her.”

Artista:  “Check out her video, I’ve been talking with her, she’s interested if we can get her a workshop set up”

Cleric:  “Fine.  If she’s in town, and if we’re not busy, I’ll host a workshop.”

Artista:  “We need to fly her in”

Cleric:  “Good luck with that.  Bring her in yourself, Fire by The Palm isn’t flying in anyone yet, the market is too small and this is too experimental.  Aileen’s full revenue, even assuming success, would only pay for her weekend’s expenses in Miami, if we have to pay to bring her in, there is no chance she OR Fire By The Palm can make a successful business workshop.  So I will do it as an art project, but no plane ticket and no hotel.”

Artista:  “No, man, we really NEED to fly her in.”

Cleric:  “Then you buy her a plane ticket, I’m out.”

Artista let it go for a while, I knew his pride and determination was either going to find a way or that he was going to buy her a ticket with ill-gotten money.  You see, Artista has two strong qualities about him:  he’s extremely determined when he sticks to something, and he’s a pure natural at persuading people, so I knew even after the first conversation that if he stuck to this, he was going to make it happen with or without me.

A month later…

Artista:  “Aileen is going to use her frequent flyer miles and stay with a friend, so she’ll be here already and for free.  Did you watch the video?”

Cleric:  “No, I was busy trying to figure out how to pay for food.”

Artista:  “DUDE!  Come on, bro!”

Cleric:  “Sigh…Alright, I’ll watch the video.”

Now, I had a little experience watching contact staff going in… Shane Morris, aka Prodigy OnFire, is the best local contact staffer, self-trained and an original founding member of Fire By The Palm.  Having watched him work up some impressive contact staff moves from scratch when we were first training, I had decided long ago from watching him that it was too hard and too much training to bother to do one set of tricks, so I never got into it.

But Artista, as I said, was very persuasive and he got me to watch the video.

I also suspected that he and Aileen conspired to buy a plane ticket with cash and not tell me about it, but even if that is what happened, my conditions were met so I decided not to pry.

Oh, and the video? SIC-K-K-K-K.  Aileen is a staff virtuoso and a contact staff pioneer.  Even though I didn’t know her at all, I thought a) hosting someone I don’t personally geek out over will help me keep my head on straight and be a better organizer, and b) I seriously wanna learn how to do THAT.  Did you see that rolling around on the ground shit?  Crazy/sexy/cool/WANT.

So finally, once all the arrangements for Miami travel were complete, I got involved.  I called Aileen, introduced myself, and told her Fire By The Palm would be hosting the workshop, and taking care of all the logistics including marketing, promotion, payment, accounting, everything.  All she had to do was be here at xyz time, teach, burn with us that night, teach again the next day, and bail.

Artista had already done all the heavy lifting, so all we had left to do was everything else.  We worked up two 3-hour classes on 3/5 and 3/6, and we traded the Botanical Gardens a $500 credit with Fire By The Palm for use of the space for both days.  I never looked at the prices for renting the gardens straight out, I may have saved some money, but trade is cash-free and cash was the one thing we did NOT have going in to this project.

So now we’ve got the artist, the dates, and the venue.  The framework is built, but we have no contract in place yet – and no sponsors – so unless we bring in some partners, this is not going to get the buzz it needs to be successful.

So now on to the contract, aka the booking form for Aileen.  Like most negotiations, many of the clauses that went into the contract were already discussed verbally, the only thing we didn’t discuss on the phone was the cost of the workshops and how we’d split it.  The split was easy, 75% – 25% Aileen/FBTP after top-line expenses, so that works out.  I assumed that the market would generate about $600 on this workshop gross revenue, so we’d walk with $150 before expenses, and Aileen would make about $450.  We also set a goal of getting 10-15 students in the door and paid, and a $500 gross revenue goal. We then broke off tickets for would-be sponsors.  It started to get a little less agreeable when we got to the cost of the workshop.  I had done a few workshops where I was the instructor, and I learned that like me, most flow artists are super-broke.  So I said, “let’s charge $25 per workshop and $40 for the pair.”

Aileen balked; she wanted to charge more.  I stopped short of telling her she was wrong, after all she does these workshops all the time and she likely knows better than I what people will pay.  Also, when you’re working with a global name, producers and organizers try not to forget that a happy celebrity is a productive and effective celebrity, so even if I thought Aileen was off her rocker and dooming us to fail, I wasn’t in a position to force her hand or correct her.  So I held my breath and went with it, charging $30 for either workshop or $48 for the pair, saving 20%.  And in the end, she was right, I did a lot more research and found out that most other dance workshops cost in my market are at least $30-50 for 2 hours, so even going with Aileen’s higher rates, the workshop was still priced to sell.

Here’s a copy of the final signed contract.  Much thanks to Aileen for agreeing to publish this with me, most people would never show such a thing lest people learn our secrets.  I say to those people, it’s a workshop, not a nuclear bomb recipe.  If someone else uses this in its exact form, changing only the names, then good for them.  That’s kind of the point. I want others around town and around the world to be able to do this kind of gathering if the idea calls to them.  Maybe I’ll get to just go to someone else’s workshop.  Remember, in this particular segment of Fire By The Palm’s business interests, we need training and don’t focus much on the money, and that makes me worry very little about getting “scooped” I don’t really care who “scores” Alien Jon’s arrival, just tell me where he’ll be and that’s good for South Florida and I still get to meet a hero, train with a living legend.

FinalContractMiami

At first, I was going to go after cash sponsors.  They bleed money, and if you can speak their language, they’ll bleed all over you.  Cash sponsors would give advertising and promotion money, and if done right, can be its own revenue source outright.  But cash sponsorships would prove elusive; a first time event with a relatively unknown organizer, organizing an obscure (so far) dance form would not go well, and even with all that, it didn’t put students in the class, which was what we were going for before any of us aimed for profit.

So I decided to take a gamble… a big one, and one that would virtually shut off any hopes of securing a whale sponsor.

I decided to get other fire troupes to co-sponsor.  Now they’re just as poor as I am, so none of us are going to shell any money, but it gets all the highest profile flow-arts names on the same page and focuses the entire south Florida professional spinning community – and all their non-professional spinjam friends – to one single project.  It would also prove, by the end, to be the fastest way to reach the fringe elements of other cities’ dancers, people I do not usually reach on my own.

So I came up with four names:

 

• BlazeNaples:  Marie Barnett and Christar Damiano, fire arts producers and firedancers from the southwest coast of Florida.
• Pyrofusion:  Palm Beach fire tribe and as big a name (if not bigger) as FBTP.
• Groovolution: Pyrofusion’s studio
• Fire-toys.net:  A newly forming fire gear supplier that shows great promise in improving the quality of fire props across the board.

Now using these names – assuming they wanted to participate in the first place – was going to be tricky.  Pyrofusion has always viewed FBTP with apprehension; we’re business competitors by most traditional definitions, so even though I don’t view it that way doesn’t mean they don’t.  Groovolution has never been for or against Fire By The Palm, so I had no idea which way Heather (owner) was going to go.  BlazeNaples and Fire-Toys.net are friends and love to train, so I figured they’d be more amenable.  One hurdle to overcome at this point was a schedule conflict – Marie had an flow workshop scheduled and rescheduled already, and now it was when we wanted to do ours.  So now to bring her in, we needed to move her event.  A big ask (it felt audacious even thinking about it), but we told her we would do whatever she wanted in return, and she knows us long enough to know that we meant it, so she said yes.  As a result, she moved the date and Artista and I went to promote and support her workshop and meetup in Naples on the rescheduled date.  Thanks again, Marie.

I did my best to make this super easy for the sponsors to say yes:  help FBTP promote, the sponsorship is a cash-free commitment, every organizing sponsor will get a free ticket to the workshop (one per organization).  Fire Toys will work up staves for newbies who want to take the class, BlazeNaples will simply commit to driving to the workshop, presumably with locals from her market who will pay for the class.  Groovolution would vend and promote, and Pyrofusion would promote.  I also worked up a Facebook ad, so I communicated that there was a lot of buzz and juice behind this one.  All the organizing names will be on all sponsorship and promotional materials, including bios.

Also, there would be some fun involvement and some shameless benefit of the self.  Fire Toys would wick up my moon staff for exhibition as well as provide practice staves for students in need.  Fire Toys balked; they wanted to vend.  I had already given vending to Groovolution because I did not anticipate Fire-Toys.net having inventory for sale by the time the workshop started, I figured they’d have a few prototypes to show off, some practice staves, and little else.  But they did, and now they couldn’t sell it, so they threatened to pull out.  To soothe this, I pointed out that if folks trained up with Fire-Toys staves, they’d be bonded to that staff for life, (which is exactly what wound up happening to me and at least a few other people).   Fire Toys relented, but not before backing out of wicking up my moon staff, which I wanted for myself personally and wanted to burn/birth at Dreamfire.  And they didn’t even say they wouldn’t wick it up, they just stopped agreeing to pay for the Kevlar, valued now at about $100, but thought at the time to be $200.  So the involvement of the moonstaff for this weekend was to die a sacrificial death on the altar of keeping a sponsor from pulling out completely.   I could live with it.  Truth be told, no sponsors were necessary in the first place, but this was for me to be part of a training exercise, and one rule I knew going in was “do not offend thy sponsor.”  Progress, people, isn’t always pretty, and the lesson is that if you’re going to try to slip in a bonus for yourself here and there, sponsors aren’t always the best place to seek delivery of said bonuses, no matter how well-suited for the task they are.

No kevlar for you!

This is the balance of power that occurs when dealing with sponsors.  Paid sponsors, when present, are footing the bill for the whole job, and they know it, so they tend to be quite dominant and demanding, with no consideration of what other interests need to be served to make a project successful.  These workshop sponsors were coming in for free, which made it a little easier to hold to the original vision, but I still needed to acknowledge the dynamic because paid sponsors will be coming sooner or later and I need to remember how to deal with them.  Or, as Zan Moore once said, “Practice the way you perform, perform the way you practice.”  Good stuff, Zan – I was practicing my sponsor management and it served all of us to treat it like it was high-stakes.

All said and done, all four sponsors got on board.  I worked up the flyer myself, also needing permissions from Flowtoys and Vulcan Crew to put their logos on the flyer.  Aileen’s a Flowtoys employee, founding member of VC, and half of a fire duet called “Fire Smoothie,” so I didn’t need their permissions as sponsors, just let me put it up there with the bio so the flyer looks better.  Logos are the property of their owners, you can’t go posting up other people’s logos on a commercial project without their permission, so it needed to be done.  Aileen secured these permissions, so the flyer was a go.

It was, as flyers go, one of my better projects.  Have a look for yourself.

Go for something different.

We also arranged a Dreamfire meetup, an evening of open firedancing on Miami Beach and what I hope is to become the predecessor of a much larger fire workshop/fire camp production, also called Dreamfire.  So two workshops, one big fire meetup, and lots and lots of community bonding.   It is, with any luck, going to be a hell of a weekend.

And it was.  I learned much, trained hard, and students, sponsors, and celebrity were absolutely blown away.  The weather was great, the gardens are among the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, and there’s a little architectural art piece on the training lawn made up of staves J.

The secret ingredient is love .

As we had hoped, the sponsors held up their promotional end (as much as I enforced it, which is to say I kinda kept loose on that) and came through with at least half of the paying students between them all.  Our reach carried all the way to Orlando, which I did not anticipate, so people even traveled for it.  We had 23 paying students over 2 days, and for a first-time project, I was absolutely floored.

Heather Phoi, 1/3 of Pyrofusion and the owner of Groovolution (a double-sponsor individual, and as such, the second most powerful person in the garden after Aileen) said when the workshop wrapped, and I quote:

“This is the best workshop I’ve ever been to in my life.”

My jaw fell to the floor.  I asked for that in writing.  That is a validation for Fire By The Palm that money can’t buy.  Heather is a studio owner and a major badass fire artist – her JOB is to do workshops like this.  AND she’s been to Burning Man… AND Firedrums.  AND Afterburn.  AND Preheat, and many other burning/training festivals that I’ve only ever seen on youtube.   If I can satisfy her artist AND her businesswoman, the formula we’ve worked up for these projects might just have legs.

Now this isn’t to say everything went perfectly, it didn’t.

• We got one workshop rescheduled forward three hours on us by the Gardens, and despite efforts to communicate this to everybody, one person slipped through the cracks and didn’t show up until the workshop was over.  We refunded his money, apologized profusely, and we were all pissed, mostly at me.  The guy came from Vero Beach, a long drive indeed.
• Some sponsor peeps had conflicts, so people I really wanted there couldn’t make it, like Lisa Shehan and Debby Carrigan, two of my local favorite firedancing women.  I had a gig pop up in the middle of it all, which distracted from preparing for Dreamfire.
• The Dreamfire meetup was a near rain-out and windy to boot, two things you never want to see at a fire jam.  Between the gig and the weather, by the time I caught up with my own fire jam half the peeps had bailed.
• Poor planning on my part almost caused Aileen to miss her plane back, a prospect that seemed to make her extremely uncomfortable.  My bad!
• There were also naysayers – outright haters – who talked against the workshop and tried to psych out anyone and everyone involved in its organization.  The name was too big to handle, the organizers too small, there are too many unknowns, you’re all doomed, blah blah blah.  If you want a business or a project that puts you out front, you had better get used to haters – specifically, ignoring them or only listening to them strategically.
• We budgeted a facebook ad for $50, but it only got 6 clicks.  I tried increasing the bid, but to no avail.  Only about $6 of the $50 was spent.  You may think that’s a cost-savings and one to be happy about, but it’s not.  Advertising is critical when reaching out to a wide area, networking alone will not get it done.  FB ads can be targeted like a laser beam, any click we got would’ve been from a staff-spinner so we wanted clicks, dammit!

I changed the name of the classes going forward.  I learned that what we were going for wasn’t really a workshop, it was more a “master class,” using traditional definitions.  So, master class it is.  I also have tons of new ideas for the next set of workshops, including:

• Scholarship and intern programs (somebody ELSE pick up the celebrity from the airport please… 5AM?  Really?!)
• Hotel group rates for out-of-towners
• A follow-up workshop instructional/inspirational DVD; lots of other good stuff like gear+ticket packages and goody bags;
• Prepay discounts, and much more.
• Taking Dreamfire public, rather than on a dark secluded beach.  We need to show the world what we can do.

All told, the workshop generated about $800 or so in revenue, and after expenses, Aileen walked with about $529 and Fire By The Palm got about $150 in cash.  So I lost money, but I made sure that where I lost money, I got something else in return.  The flyer took three days; I’m a decent designer but I design slowly.  Outsourced, that would’ve cost $250 alone.   I gave away a $500 fire show, but locked myself in with a killer venue that throws high-end events daily.  I threw in for a round of drinks and food on Lincoln Road for a little wrap party ($60 I think?), but I got to listen to uninterrupted feedback my target audience – my tribe – for over an hour.   I gave all the glory and marketing value to the sponsors, but in return I got to train with a legend in my own backyard, and the sponsors did all the driving.  And I shouldn’t say that FBTP got no brand value, we listed ourselves as an organizing sponsor, even if I did ultimately wind up paying for my own ticket (remember, only one ticket per organization was allocated, and Artista was clearly the force to be rewarded on this one).

Who knows?  Maybe this actually could make money in the future.  But either way, when all is said and done, South Florida spinners are going to be some of the best-trained dancers in the world, and thanks to many blessings, that includes me .

The other day I called a fire peep to check his availability for a show.  Lately, Fire By The Palm has been getting more and more momentum in the booking agency side of things, and while that’s a passionate thing to be excited about, it brings about some very interesting challenges and growing pains. 

In short, I’m running out of dancers. 

We also spoke of him and his prop list, his other work, and we got on the subject of what I think of him as a performer (he asked).  I told him what I loved and where I think he needs to improve his own show, and then he said this to me:

“I will trade other services I can do for you [from his other jobs] if you improve my placement on the roster.”

That was odd… I mentally keep track of who my first few choices are for shows, but the shows are often so different from event to event that the dancer I wouldn’t put on stage A is PERFECT for Stage B.  But roster ups and downs?  Jockeying other interests for improved positions?  I can do that too?

So great, right?  Now I’ve got a whole new criteria to think about, but the only way it works is if I also ignore the whole quality of their talent overall.  Maybe I can get Jay the Traveler to make all my crazy custom firedancing props for free.  Maybe Tommy Danger will design me a fire-themed restaurant and maybe I can get Blaze Farringer to costume me in a new getup every week.  All I gotta do is dangle “more work” in front of them and poof!  Instant indentured slavery.

I morally chewed on that for a while.  Tempting in the extreme.  There’s a ton of stuff that Fire By The Palm needs, and I can, if need be, source it in the community on favors and trade.   But finding the top talent – the most interesting, fascinating, and most importantly – the most watchable performers – is one of the cornerstones of Fire By The Palm’s unique point of difference.  We strive to break new ground, to show something truly never-before-seen, to push the craft forward (thank you Tommy Brown for that awesome phrase).  Whether or not we actually hit our mark on any given day is for the audience to decide, but we have to make that the MOST important priority in the development of whatever else is in store for us or else we just become another soulless bottom-line-driven corporation, feeding on power and the weak.

So I think I will not accept his offer as given.  Rather, I will give to him and to the rest of you an opportunity – using only your firedancing performance ambitions to whatever level satisfies you – to gain a place on the Fire By The Palm roster as well as give you criteria for how a Fire By The Palm show gets its talent.  With that, you will have a road map of things to do and what you can do to impress me and gain priority on the FBTP roster.

So first, here’s the application:  If you want a job, fill it out completely and honestly and email it to me at julian@5hplus.com.

FBTP Talent Application

You also need to send a completed W-9 form.

Now let’s get into the next part:  How does Fire By The Palm Productions select its talent for any given show?  And how can you use that criteria to be selected more often?

1.   The first thing you can do is send me some awesome pictures and videos.  Firedancing shows, like many other things, are sold by proposal.  So I create proposals and give them to the client, which include all the details of the show, how long it will run, where it is, costs, and – more relevantly to this conversation – who the performers will be.  BUT… I will sometimes be asked to send over 5 or 6 dancer pics to give the client the option of selecting their own talent, and your pictures are your ONLY opportunity to get them to want you.

2.   One of the things I want most in a fire artist is a good list of props.  You really need at least two to three firedancing forms to be a repeat Fire By The Palm performer, but if you’ve got 5 or 6, that is WAY better.  With your six forms and my 6 forms, we can throw down a killer 30-minute duet (that is on the long end of the spectrum) without repeating ourselves that often, and a 15-minute show (much more common) is a breeze.  You can also help me get more props into the hands of people who can spin them but do not own them, expanding our bigger shows’ capabilities.

3.  Safety-minded:  you spin off right, you keep your fire to a size that fits your dancing space.  You don’t blow lamp oil all over the audience, you check your o-rings, you don’t drop your props a lot or try stuff that isn’t stage-ready.  Also, have some safety equipment.  I probably won’t need you to bring it, but knowing that you have it makes me think more of you.  Fire is dangerous, I’ve had accidents, others have as well, preparation is your only weapon against catastrophe.

4.  Ya gotta have at least one good costume.  It doesn’t have to be expensive, but a costume is something that makes or breaks you.  Sometimes when we go to the beach and burn I get videographers out there shooting us but then they usually focus mostly on me.  This isn’t because I’m good or fit or whatever, as some have claimed, it is because I am in costume out there and that will always be more interesting to watch than a superior dancer in street clothes.

6.  BE REACHABLE and respond QUICKLY:  I get calls and it goes from we don’t know each other to show booked in under an hour.  In that time, I’m doing the proposals and checking your availability.  If I can’t find you, the sales cycle falls out of step and then the job fades away.  Keep your phone working and prioritize your cell phone bill.  If I can’t reach you, I won’t look twice.

7.  Quiet on the set:  One thing I have learned – through great difficulty and many mistakes – is that when you are a vendor for an event, keep your mouth shut, your head down, and do your job.  Talk as little as possible, nobody is interested in detailed stories about fire arts, your new poi trick, or any other small talk.  Ask for as little as possible on site, try to be self contained and self-producing.

8.  Book me!  I produce and all that stuff, but I’m still a firedancer who enjoys work doing firedancing.  If you’re out there selling shows and you get a call for more than you, don’t think I’m too proud to put Fire By The Palm on a shelf and be your talent handing out YOUR business cards at a party.  People who are bringing me work make me want to bring them work.  It’s called synergy, and it reallllllllllllllly works.

9.  Portable music.  You need an amp or a boom box to get bookings, I have an amp but you and I won’t often be dancing in the same place at the same time so you’ll need your own music.

 There’s a flip side to this, and that is the list of things that will make me not want to work with you.

1.  Negativity.  If you show up and your attitude sucks, that makes my alreayd-high-pressure job all the harder.  Stay positive, get rid of the words “impossible” and “can’t.”

2.  Tardiness.  Early is on-time and on-time is late.

3.  Non responsiveness.   We live in the electronic information age.  If I am trying to reach you and you won’t be reached, I will conclude that you are being quiet on purpose and that will tell me all I need to know.

4.  Asking me for directions to a show when I already sent you the call sheet.  Self-manage, self-organize, keep track of your emails and paperwork.

5.  Being hung up on price – Fire By The Palm is working to keep firedancing rates – both talent and retail – at a premium.  Often I feel like Fire By The Palm and Pyrofusion are the only two South Florida fire organizations who give a damn about such things, but we’ll both tell you that negotiations and pricing are custom and situational and trading items of unequal value may also be in play.  So just because I got you a $400 show last week doesn’t mean you get to complain that next week’s show only pays $250.  I know you’ll feel the difference, because I am in the jobs too, but price varies so manage your expectations accordingly.  If you think you’ll only cherry pick the top paying shows, think again.

6.  This one is both advice for all and a confidential to a guy who will recognize it:  if you ask me what you can do to get work from me, and I tell you, and you don’t do it, you don’t get to come back to me and ask me why I haven’t booked you yet.  If you don’t jump through the most basic hoops of developing your product so that it can be presented to others, then what you say you want is NOT in fact what you actually want.  Which is fine, I learned that about other fire peeps when we all first started getting together and everybody wanted to troupe up and do big shows and then the choreography and costuming became necessary and suddenly nobody wanted to do what needed to be done.

7.  Intoxication:  Be sober, or be blacklisted.  If we have a hell of a show, we’ll go get a beer AFTER.

 

And finally, some things that have no impact on talent selection:

1.  Whether or not you attend spinjams or Phoenix.  I love hanging with my peeps, but if you don’t go to those and you are still a good performer I’ll still hire you.

2.  Your age.  I’m 39 and in real entertainment terms, I have no business trying to be talent at all.  BUT, age, lack of fitness, poor grooming, can all be cleaned up and concealed if necessary for a show.  This is tied to costumes but can also be assisted by face and body painting.

3.  Whether or not you bottom feed for your own company.  It’s bad for you, but your poor marketing choices do not affect your talent selection.

4.  How good your poi is.  Doesn’t matter if you poi like Maiki Nope or like a beginner, talent is a pass-fail when it comes to being on stage so stop bragging about how you should work because you’re an ‘awesome spinner.’  Awesome spinning is only ONE component of being a fire entertainer, there are many other components and you need to work on all of them.

5.  Whether or not you are a producer of your own shows and your own brand.  Some entertainment producers will only work with talent because they fear competition and they think producers are more expensive (which sometimes we are), but to me the performance is the thing, if you are doing a good show for Fire By The Palm then what you do when you are not working for Fire By The Palm is not my concern.  Need to Burn, Fire A la Mode, Dangerfun Sideshow, and other teams down here all have their own brands, I work with them and if that’s your thing you should do it too.

That’s it for now peeps – I hope you’re all having a great 2012 that is full of fire and fun, and to those that look forward to taking the next steps that are meaningful to them, I look forward to working with you.

YOOOOOOOO fire peeps!  Phoenix – A Firedancing Fundraiser is almost upon us and as we get closer to Sunday’s fiery fun, a lot of this is cut and paste from the last Phoenix update but there are some new things in here so please do not skip.

THREE NEW THINGS:

1.  We need fuel.  In September, we were able to find enough funds to buy 18 cans of coleman, of which we burned 16.  This time we only have enough budget available for 12 cans, so if you are able to bring a can, please do.

2.  No unburned props on the stage.  If the kevlar has never been burned on your prop, it is untested and therefore unsuitable for a stage with an audience.  We can, if you must, arrange for a test burn prior to stage time, but it would be better for everybody involved if you devirginized your props between now and Sunday just so you can make sure they work.  Even something as basic as a staff can fall apart and create great danger for the dancer and audience and this rule will be enforced.

3.  If you sign in to firedance, you will also be asked to take at least 30 minutes on-shift as a safety.

CHECK-IN:

Check-in is at the Spin-ballS tent, which will be set up at about 2:30 PM.  Fire stage goes hot around 7ish, and there’s a firedancing safety review meeting before the stage opens.

Be prepared to teach, we are expecting children with Autism to attend and we want to make sure we get everybody to try the joy of spinning things .

There’s paperwork.  You have to sign a waiver/video release, so do yourselves a favor and bring a completed waiver with you to save the organizers, volunteers and yourselves time.

release

Print this out, initial each paragraph, and fill in your contact and signature on the last page.  PRETTY PLEASE do this in advance to help yourselves and us get everybody checked without a line (ugh,  lines!)

Once you’ve returned the completed waiver and passed a clothing inspection (not kidding) you will be given a wristband.  It is your access to both the fueling area and the stage.  If you do not have a wristband, you will not be permitted in either area.

FUELING STATION:

The fueling station will be sectioned off from the public.   12 cans of Coleman will be provided, if you want to use lamp oil, you must bring it with you.  As I mentioned, we need more fuel, so if you have a job, grab some coleman.

There is no such thing as too many fire blankets or fire extinguishers.  Bring them if you have them, especially the blankets.

No smoking in the fuel station.  Seriously, do we even need to say this?  Yes, actually, so don’t smoke in the fueling area.

DO NOT bring your own bowls for fueling.  This happened on Phoenix #1 and it ended up being a fire hazard.

The fueling containers all of us will use are three 5-gallon buckets and a 2-gallon ammo can for odd-size props.  The cans will be clearly labeled COLEMAN, LAMP OIL, or 50/50.  Phoenix dancers are asked to conform to one of these three fuels for the evening.   Kerosene, gasoline, and lighter fluid are going to sit this one out.

We are spinning off in strainer paint cans.  We will review this technique on-site during a fire safety meeting prior to going live.

There will be a fueler – someone who handles the buckets for you and returns the strained fuel back to the buckets.  As you enter and leave the fueling area, you leave nothing IN the fuel area and carry only props in and out of it.

STAGE:

We enter and exit the stage at opposite ends.  A stage manager will check wristbands, facilitate dancers on and off the stage, and will alert onstage dancers that a dancer is coming in.  The stage manager will also help you figure out where you should assume a spot on the stage if it gets crowded, or hold the line if the stage is full.

Do not enter the stage without the green light of the stage manager.  Do it one time, you lose your wristband.

No sitting on the wall behind the stage.  Looks crappy.

There will be 3-5 safety peeps onstage, depending on how big we configure the barricades.  The stage word for “you are on fire” is ORANGE, and if you are on stage and a safety is shouting “orange” at you, stop and pay attention.

The safety at the exit of the stage will have a blanket in hand to put out props.  All props must be completely off before you fully leave the stage barricades.

PROMOTION:

We are expecting more people to show up to watch than last time.  Many of you have stated interest in promoting yourselves and your fire arts brands while we help Autism Speaks. 

There are many things you can do to promote Phoenix and promote yourselves respectively:

1. Repost:  go to the phoenix facebook event page and repost it.  Every time somebody else reposts it, “like” it.  This makes it show up on more of the facebook walls who have their wall feeds set to “most popular” and really does work. 
2. Make the flyer for Phoenix your default picture on Facebook and other social portals until Phoenix ends.  This only takes a few seconds and the switch also makes the news feed. 
3. If you are a member of facebook groups and pages, repost where appropriate. 
4. repost on your friends’ walls if you KNOW they will let you.  If not, ask first, there is no need for spam.
5. Twitter it – http://www.firebythepalm.com/phoenix.html #firedancing 
6. Bring business cards!  The sign-in table will also hold the business cards and flyers of those who produce and carry both, but you should keep some on you as well. 
7. When dancing, make some eye contact.  Making a connection with your audience is key in any type of performance. 
8. Dust off your LinkedIn account and your youtube account and repost there. 
9. Wear a costume.  People who wear costumes are more fun to watch, and it is easier for a potential patron to envision you performing for their special occasion.
10. Got contacts in the entertainment business already?  Make sure they have an opportunity to check out your show, let them know this weekend you’ll be live and point out to them that this is to help the world and wouldn’t they want to be a part of that?  It works, try it.

That’s all for now, people who have questions or need any additional information should hit me up at julian@5hplus.com or call my cell, 305-318-4144. 

Thanks, see you all on Sunday!

~Cleric

Hey gang, recently South Florida had it’s first ever festival-scale flow arts festival, aptly named “Florida Flow Fest” and I gotta say, it was unreal on every level!  Fire by the Palm was a sponsor, and our gives included:

• Paying for all the fuel and using the Fire By The Palm fueling setup for the master showcase.
• Providing safeties and stage management for the master showcase.
• Performing IN the master showcase.
• Hosting a roundtable discussion on the business of flow (which turned into a 2-hour lecture, damn cuban coffee!)
• Providing some volunteers from the included sponsor ticket package.

From the roundtable discussion, I worked off of an outline that talked about what new flow artists need in order to find professional spinning work.  I promised to put up that outline on the blog, so here it is:

THE BUSINESS OF FLOW 

You love to spin, now you wanna make money at it.  But how?

 DEVELOP YOUR PRODUCT

GETTING STARTED:

• Three costumes
• Your own props.
•  Two dancing forms or “acts”
• Pictures of you, on stage or at least in costume.
• Video
• Performer’s insurance
• Reliable phone and transportation

NEXT STEPS:

• Business cards  
• Website
• Social Media
• Finding buyers

MARKETING

• What is marketing?  How is it different from advertising?
• 4 P’s – Product – Promotion – Price – Place

Product

• Two dancing forms or better
• Solo or troupe
• Fire?  Glow?  More?

Promotion = advertising

• Website
• Newsletter
• Social media
• Which channel?
• Copywriting.

  Price

•   Create packages:  10-minute, 15-minute, 20-minute.
•   Depends on channel

Place

                                How far will you travel?

SOME CHANNELS

Retail

• Private event / Corporate
• Bar/nightclub
• Restaurant
• Hotel
• Festival
• Concert

       Strategy tip:   Pick one and work it to death.

Wholesale

• Entertainment Companies / Booking Agencies
• TV/Film/Photography
• Event Planners
• Wedding Planners

SELLING

                Find buyers in your channel

Take sales training – read books, audio files, do sales training with other people (role playing), sales is a craft, not a gift.

OTHER TIPS AND TRICKS

Email – signature file AND attached contact file can be a part of every email you send.

Trade – trading art equalizes all value of services (a $500 photographer shooting a $350 firedancer are trading, more or less, equally).

REVENUE SOURCES

• Gigs
• Students – private or group
• Workshops / master classes
• Affiliate selling  / referral programs
• Open a studio
• Contests and competitions

Greetings my fellow firebugs!  Phoenix – A Firedancing Fundraiser is almost upon us and as we get closer to Sunday’s fiery fun, there are a few things to go over and they’re all kind of, well, you know… important!

So let’s do this in order.

CHECK-IN:

Check-in is at the Spin-ballS tent, which will be set up at about 5PM.  Fire stage goes hot around 8ish, and there’s a firedancing safety review meeting before the stage opens.

There’s paperwork.  You have to sign a waiver/video release, so do yourselves a favor and bring a completed waiver with you to save the organizers, volunteers and yourselves time.

Phoenix waiver and release -

Print this out, initial each paragraph, and fill in your contact and signature on the last page.  PRETTY PLEASE do this in advance to help yourselves and us get everybody checked without a line (ugh,  lines!)

Once you’ve returned the completed waiver and passed a clothing inspection (not kidding) you will be given a wristband.  It is your access to both the fueling area and the stage.  If you do not have a wristband, you will not be permitted in either area.

FUELING STATION:

The fueling station will be sectioned off from the public.   Coleman will be provided, if you want to use lamp oil, you must bring it with you.

There is no such thing as too many fire blankets or fire extinguishers.  Bring them if you have them, especially the blankets.

No smoking in the fuel station.  Seriously, do we even need to say this?  Yes, actually, so don’t smoke in the fueling area.

DO NOT bring your own bowls for fueling.  This happened on Phoenix #1 and it ended up being a fire hazard.

The fueling containers all of us will use are three 5-gallon buckets and a 2-gallon ammo can for odd-size props.  The cans will be clearly labeled COLEMAN, LAMP OIL, or 50/50.  Phoenix dancers are asked to conform to one of these three fuels for the evening.   Kerosene, gasoline, and lighter fluid are going to sit this one out.

We are spinning off in strainer paint cans.  We will review this technique on-site during a fire safety meeting prior to going live.

There will be a fueler – someone who handles the buckets for you and returns the strained fuel back to the buckets.  As you enter and leave the fueling area, you leave nothing IN the fuel area and carry only props in and out of it.

STAGE:

We enter and exit the stage at opposite ends.  A stage manager will check wristbands, facilitate dancers on and off the stage, and will alert onstage dancers that a dancer is coming in.  The stage manager will also help you figure out where you should assume a spot on the stage if it gets crowded, or hold the line if the stage is full.

Do not enter the stage without the green light of the stage manager.  Do it one time, you lose your wristband.

No sitting on the wall behind the stage.  Looks crappy.

There will be 3-5 safety peeps onstage, depending on how big we configure the barricades.  The stage word for “you are on fire” is ORANGE, and if you are on stage and a safety is shouting “orange” at you, stop and pay attention.

The safety at the exit of the stage will have a blanket in hand to put out props.  All props must be completely off before you fully leave the stage barricades.

TAX CREDIT:

Your performance is tax-deductible up to $250.  For those unfamiliar, this basically means that at the end of the year when you do your taxes, you can submit a receipt for your donated fire show along with your tax statements that will discount your tax bill by that much.  Without claiming an education on the subject, the basic idea is that if you have to pay extra taxes that year, you pay less, and if you are getting back money from taxes, you might get more.  For your particular situation, this may or may not matter, consult your tax professional if you need details.  But everybody should participate just in case, and here’s how you do it:

1. Download and print the In-Kind Contributioin Valuation Form
2. Fill it out (put $250 as the value) and bring it with you to Phoenix.
3. Give it to the folks at the Make-A-Wish Foundation tent
4. They will mail you a receipt.
5. Include the receipt in your end-of-year taxes.
6. Poof!  Deduction .

PROMOTION:

Guys, we have put this in front of no less than 150,000 people.  The turnout could be massive, and many of you have stated interest in promoting yourselves and your fire arts brands while we help the MAWF.  There are many things you can do to promote Phoenix and promote yourselves respectively:

1. Repost:  go to the phoenix facebook event page and repost it.  Every time somebody else reposts it, “like” it.  This makes it show up on more of the facebook walls who have their wall feeds set to “most popular” and really does work. 
2. Make the flyer for Phoenix your default picture on Facebook and other social portals until Phoenix ends.  This only takes a few seconds and the switch also makes the news feed. 
3. If you are a member of facebook groups and pages, repost where appropriate. 
4. repost on your friends’ walls if you KNOW they will let you.  If not, ask first, there is no need for spam.
5. Twitter it – http://www.firebythepalm.com/phoenix.html #firedancing 
6. Bring business cards!  The sign-in table will also hold the business cards and flyers of those who produce and carry both, but you should keep some on you as well. 
7. When dancing, make some eye contact.  Making a connection with your audience is key in any type of performance. 
8. Dust off your LinkedIn account and your youtube account and repost there. 
9. Wear a costume.  People who wear costumes are more fun to watch, and it is easier for a potential patron to envision you performing for their special occasion.
10. Got contacts in the entertainment business already?  Make sure they have an opportunity to check out your show, let them know this weekend you’ll be live and point out to them that this is to help the world and wouldn’t they want to be a part of that?  It works, try it.

That’s all for now, people who have questions or need any additional information should hit me up at julian@5hplus.com or call my cell, 305-318-4144. 

Thanks, see you all on Sunday!

~Cleric

To my friends and family in the South Florida firedancing community,

First, let me express my deepest thanks.  Phoenix – A Firedancing Fundraiser, was a smashing success, the donation total is now over $1,200 and counting.  But more than that, I want to thank each and every one of you for putting aside just about everything you had going on in your work, family, and personal lives to help a fallen brother get back up.  We came together and gave of ourselves without judgment, and for that, I am forever grateful.

We also put on a HELL of a fire show.  I don’t know if you saw the show I saw, but the only thing more eyegasmic than watching each of you showcase your love of the fire arts was watching you all do it together.

South Florida audiences will never be the same .

Many of you have a million questions about the first Phoenix, mostly because some of you hope to host gatherings like this in the future (awesome!!!).  I am writing, as we speak, the follow up journalism entry on Phoenix.  When complete, it will be published on Firepedia.com.  Much like the blog I’ve recently completed on FP called “Thy Mighty Staff,” (part #3 is live) this will detail virtually everything about the organization and management of Phoenix.

I’ve spoken with Kevin and Jimi from Spin-ballS and consulted with other friends and colleagues in the fire community and we are very excited to announce that Phoenix – a Firedancing Fundraiser, will become a quarterly public fire arts event which will, over time, proudly develop:

•     a cutting-edge fueling system suitable for up to 200 dancers

•     More entertainment scouts, we had 3 in the audience that I recognized but I have a plan to get all of them there at the same time.

•     Intense planning.

•     More Sponsors; mainstream sponsors.

•     Volunteers.

•     Product tie-ins (a kind of sponsorship)

•     An advertising campaign.

•     A quality PR machine that will bring fire arts to the TV screens of all South Floridians.

•     A global webcast

It will – with much work, passion, and focus – truly rise to be a major South Florida Happening.

There’s more.  Every non-Phoenix month at Young Circle, Spin-ballS and I will host a spinjam from 12:00 noon until 11:00 pm that turns into a firejam after the sun goes down.  Second Sundays are the suggested days, subject to change.  These fire arts gatherings are just for us, but we’ll also make it a point to spin some Spin-ballS and demo them for passers-by that take an interest in our spinning.  Cool, because we get to make new spinners and help a local vendor and friend grow their business by simply doing what we love – spinning stuff!

Young Circle is a real Godsend to the South Florida fire arts and spinning community.  To say nothing of the killer state of the art dance studio we can use on-property to host guest instructors from places like Groovolution and others, the park has allowed us – thanks to the relationship, park permits, and insurance with Spin-ballS – to give South Florida’s fire artists their first ever public, live, and totally legal firedancing pitch.                                                              

The next fire spinjam at Young Circle is Sunday, 7/17, we’ll follow up with more details soon.  Thanks again, I love each and every one of you, and stay tuned fo mo fi-ya!

~Julian “Cleric” Campolo

Fire By The Palm Productions

When I first started getting into firedancing professionally, I didn’t ever envision that it would become full-time work.   To me, it was supposed to be easy pocket money to add to my successful, more conservative profession of old-school marketing for things like suntan lotion, vitamin supplements, and investment advisory firms.  Marketing is its own discipline, the values and vehicles we use to do it are largely applicable across every industry, and to a business is as indispensable as accounting.

So when the marketing and advertising world collapsed with the rest of the recession, I had no idea what to do.  At first, I sent out a few thousand resumes even when there was 100:1 ratio of applications for available positions.  I hadn’t built out the firedancing business yet, and didn’t expect to, this was supposed to be easy and passive, right?

Bulllllllshit!  Man makes plans and God laughs, or so they say.

And I was still one of the only spinners I knew at this point.

So I did what I always do when faced with doom and gloom.  I went to my church, the Miami Beach full moon drum circle, and did some burns at the water’s edge.   I was particularly wild with my forms, sweating and breathing heavy and not much caring about the audience or whether or not I was giving good flow.  I was angry at God for kicking me in the junk over and over again, and this was my way of screaming at him.  I wanted his energy off of me, out of me, and while you’re at it, take the fire and the whole fucking universe with you.

And then after a particularly berserker set, I couldn’t take it anymore.  I turned to the ocean, looked up at the moon, and screamed until I fell down.

And then something…crazy…happened.  I heard things.  I saw things.  Things that couldn’t really be there.  Things that only a “God” could show a man, although I was pretty sure that the words and images I got were hallucinations borne of a broken mind.  But the information was coming so quickly that I couldn’t dwell on it in the moment because whatever else it was, it was brilliant, extremely important, and universal in scale.  Really strange time-distortions, very Gandalf-vs.-Balrog kinda surreal mindwalking.  And it was fast;  the whole experience happened at what felt like less than a few seconds, but someone finally shook me and pointed out that I had been lying on the sand, firepoi handles still in hands, for over an hour.

I have given up on figuring out how to explain the whole thing, but one of the things I learned that night is that my life is not in vein, I was NOT put here by accident, and even if there wasn’t a passion and a trajectory set up for me before, there is CERTAINLY one now.  And it comes with many benefits.

I decided also to start writing things down, even if I didn’t keep it.  I scrawled a version of my beach experience on my friend’s myspace comment wall, the e-equivalent of writing it on a bathroom wall with a pencil.  I fully expected it to dissolve with the tides, and it did, but she saved it for me and sent it back, and here’s what I assume is the final version.

~~~

Prologue

And so the Lord watched the old Cleric again brave the cold, the lawless blue gangs, exhaustion, isolation, starvation and pain just to dance.  Dance at the water’s edge, to show fire to the ocean; Dance in praise of the universe, the one-story that saw fit to include him even if nobody else would. And through circles upon circles, into the heart of the Cleric did the Lord peer, discovering simple wishes. Wishes of dancing for life, for time, for family, for friends, for revelers, for anyone; for lifting up and inspiring and no more.

In words of ocean’s mist, wind whips, darkest clouds on darker skies and burning torches the Lord then did speak to the old Cleric and said unto him,

“In all things there is a way, a flow, and yours is mine.

Manage your needs and pains, but do not muddle needs and wants, nor wants and wishes. Do not confuse pain and strife with disability and hopelessness. This is the path unto further isolation and despair.

Dance with praise and voice your wishes from the towers’ tops for all to hear. Dance well, little monkey, and grow; Grow your sons, your community, your world. Learn and grow and live and celebrate, for this is My way. Do this, and in it share Me.  For this, your city of rebirth will be forever known in the universe… the one-story – my story – as the land where fire dances.”

Wicks exhausted, the Cleric accepted the Lord’s offer and wept…for he knew what he would be doing on his final day.

~~~
So, I’m apparently on a mission from God… yep, me and the Blues Brothers.

Testing 1…2…3… this is Julian Campolo, aka “Cleric” trying out Fire By The Palm Productions’s first blog entry.  I hope to help firedancers everywhere learn both the craft and the business of firedancing with a generous sprinkling of entrepreneurial and fire arts journalism.  I intend to share things here that other people largely cannot or will not talk about.  Many professional firedancers act from a place of protectionism when it comes to things like marketing, sales, advertising, promotions, and market-making (if they even bother market-making at all, most don’t), but what I intend to demonstrate with this blog is that teaching firedancers to be more entrepreneurial actually makes ME more entrepreneurial.  And that’s always a good thing, business is in my blood as much as waving a stick around .

Fire fairies and a Ferarri... what's not to love?

In the beginning of my adventure into the flow arts, I was one of the only spinners I could find, despite much seeking.  The professionals weren’t interested in developing a gathering, and hobbyists proved difficult to find.  I just decided to keep spinning at drum circles – publicly – and let the chips fall where they may.  If Firedancing and glowdancing are as cool as I think they are, then simply showing it to people will either bring out other dancers, or actually create new ones from thin air.  After all, I can’t be the only person alive that is into this, even if I can’t find anyone else, they gotta be out there somewhere, right?

That was 7 years ago, 4 years after I started learning poi, using nothing more than Home of Poi pixelated videos.

I still go to drum circles every month.  I’m up to over 200 and (lost) counting and I have no intention of stopping.  The difference now?  There are never less than 5-10 firedancers in attendance, I do live professional shows as my primary source of income, I have a roster of dancers that I actually get to put to work once in a while and I’ve been blessed to find over 50 local spinners that I can call tribespeople and friends.  I certainly had a hand in some of this that you see today;  I ran gatherings, invested time, energy, fuel, paid marketing vehicles, and every other thing I had – in a time when I had nothing – to promoting the idea of firedancing together and pursuing the craft with many minds tuned to one passion.  But I cannot take any meaningful sole credit for the South Florida Community growing as it has, because even if I didn’t do what I did, somebody else would’ve done it or it would’ve grown on its own.  The arts find their way out, and others – who are now my friends – were also quietly out there working to the same ends.

11 years after this journey begins, there are spinning communities everywhere in this land, by which I mean earth.  The information age is so much a part of our fiber that even though at one time I couldn’t find a firedancer or a firedancing website, I now write my first blog while simultaneously wondering if I could possibly have anything relevant to add to the firedancing information universe since there is so much of it out there. 

I guess we’ll find out.

In the upcoming weeks, expect entries about Islamorada Fish Company, the progress of the Moon Staff, and some sketches for custom fire fans.  I’ll also be on about pricing shows, sponsorships, and vendors (being one and having one).

Still beats shaving!

If all goes according to my intentions, content will also be just as reader-driven as it is FBTP driven.  I think that would be a natural progression of things, the best blogs have many perspectives.   Thanks so much for stopping by, and I look forward to starting this new adventure with the greatest fire family a schmo like me could ever have.

~Jules