It’s after midnight. I just got home. I’m eating some peanut butter straight from the jar. I didn’t write yesterday. The tank was empty in the morning… and well, I just got home. This is how I expect my week to play out: 12 – 15 hour days, the last 3 hours of which are a mixture of fun and work. I’m, expected to be visible and be a friendly and recognizable face in the crowd. Tonight was the first night of our blues challenge. 800 musicians come to Memphis to play and compete for a chance to win recording deals and festival gigs. Watching the fans tonight, I could see a lot of people just happy to be around fellow enthusiasts (and of course loving the music). My eyes are heavy… I’ll have to pick this up in the morning.
[morning] With only about 1/3 of the people in town yet, the rest will be coming on Wednesday and Thursday, the bar was already crowded. I’m told that by Friday, it’s be nearly impossible to move through any of the clubs. I usually avoid those type of crowds – we’ll see.
We were only working with a handful of venues last night for the kickoff. I made my way in to about 4 different places. Rum Boogie Cafe had a jam session and every 15 minutes or so swapped out musicians. Here’s a short clip of what was going on there.
I’m curious to gather more anecdotal feedback about where people are coming from, why they’re here in Memphis, and if they’re enjoying it. I met two or three people who said this trip was a retirement gift for themself. I met people from Canada (super nice), South Carolina, Florida, and ran in to a guy Tim, who plays guitar in a band I used to go see, Slim and the Perkolators. I spoke to a number of people from Pennsylvania – they seemed happy to meet another PA person….
I have a lot of ideas on how to improve the guest experience – not necessarily because it’s bad, but because I’m also spending a bit of time observing. With thousands of people coming from all over the world, it’s difficult to create customized experiences, but I think we could do more of it. I know we need to find ways to use technology better. I feel like there are ways to get the local community involved too – I think only about 5% of the attendees are from Memphis.
I don’t think I’m going to have time to do a lot of writing this week. I barely had time to eat or feed Nick yesterday. I could be ok with this interruption of work life balance – if it were limited to this week and this event. There are still a lot of challenges that I see in terms of overall planning, and the approach to work in general. I’m enjoying getting to meet so many different people – and the music is really good. I’ll try to upload more of my crappy and grainy pictures and videos. The blogging software doesn’t make the process easy. More as the week goes on….