The Loud Whisper Takeover
Featuring interviews with actors, stunts, dancers, filmmakers, action movie directors, athletes, Krav Maga teachers, acting coaches, and more.
Epic tales of changemakers, authentic personal stories, and top tips about the industry, the podcast is a treasure of knowledge helping storytellers of all kinds on their own journeys, and inspiring people to take action upon their own dreams.
Ever heard your inner voice getting louder and louder, urging you towards a new path? When our inner guidance starts to become so loud, we can no longer ignore it, and we MUST take action... This is often a time when life changes direction drastically. We are literally being called to take that leap of faith, make that phone call, write that script, make that film in other words, time to embrace our wildest dreams, shift gear, and grow exponentially.
Let's dive into the art of listening courageously to our inner compass. Because every one of us is destined to live a grand story and adventure while walking on planet Earth!
Headphones on, notebooks out, and buckle up!
Hosted by Cindy Claes.
The Loud Whisper Takeover
19: Mastering Events and Private Screenings for Short Films
Our latest episode features the amazing event marketing expert Kathleen Sykes. Drawing from her extensive experience with opera companies, symphony orchestras, museums, and more, Kathleen reveals the art of crafting unforgettable in-person events. Organizing private events to showcase our creative creations can be exhilarating yet overwhelming all at once.
How can we leverage in-person events to build long-term community engagement?
To make Kathleen's top tips even more tangible, she is taking us through a real example of how host Cindy Claes could set up an in-person screening for her 10min dystopian short film "All Dogs Go To Heaven". In this episode we uncover new avenues for community outreach and engagement. Our conversation seamlessly blends practical tips for event logistics with deep dives into the emotional and intellectual impact of storytelling.
Whether you're an event organizer or an artist (filmmaker, choreographer, etc) looking to enhance your community-building skills, Kathleen's expert advice will equip you with the tools to create memorable, impactful events that resonate long after the final curtain call!
Here is the teaser of short film "All Dogs Go To Heaven":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru8ltTzm-ew
Guest Contact:
kathleensykes.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleen-m-sykes/
Want to send Cindy Claes a DM?
Let's continue the conversation on Instagram:
Cindy Claes - Host
@cindy_claes
Loud Whisper VZW - Producers
@loudwhispervzw
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Welcome to the Lad Whisperer Takeover podcast. Today we're going to talk about in-person events. For example, I just finished my short film and I'm so proud of myself and the work that my team did and how we made it happen. But now we're going to start festival season. We also really should organize private projections. To be honest, just the thought of organizing in-person private projections can feel heavy, not because I'm not excited to share the film, but because I can already feel the burnout coming from afar. I've been organizing many events in my life and while there is this exhilarating sort of energy, there is also this thought of While there is this exhilarating sort of energy, there is also this thought of ah, there's so much energy going into it, and then what? Especially when you have something like a film where you have the impression you're organizing a private screening, people pay 10 euros, 10 dollars to get in and then that's it. Everything stops there. How can we build long-term communities? How can we actually engage with our audiences in the long term? How can we make that event memorable for everyone?
Speaker 1:I have a special guest today, all the way out of the United States, kathleen Sykes. Hi, kathleen, how are you doing? Hi, good, good to be here. I'm so excited to talk to you today because I hope to find a lot of inspiration and kind of get rid of that really heavy thing that I have on my shoulders when it comes to organizing in-person events. So you do specialize in that, but you do also other things in your business. Can you please tell us a little bit more about what you do, what you specialize in and, of course, what you're passionate about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I understand the burnout this has been. The majority of my career is getting people to events and it can be a bit of a slog getting there, but anyway. So I run a small marketing agency that is focused on getting people to events and capturing that information and then reusing it to get them to your next events. And you know also, you know in there some building some community, getting people excited about things, telling the stories that you need to tell about the events to get people there and to get them excited. And what am I passionate about? I am like the kind of person who is like obsessively interested in everything I love. I love the arts, I love like just diving in deep and like figuring out every single thing I can about these kinds of things. And that's one of those things where it really helps. If you're a marketer and you're obsessively interested in everything, because you just become fascinated by whatever your client's project is, you become very passionate about it.
Speaker 1:Can you give us a couple of examples of events that you've worked on, or some of your clients or some of the artists? I know you worked with theater companies. You worked on other type of events. What type of events have you helped organizing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, For about five years of my career, I actually worked for an opera company and a symphony orchestra. They were combined and so that was like kind of the baptism by fire. This is, you know, event after event after event. It was the what are the only full-time orchestras in the United States, and so it was like we had four operas a year and maybe oh gosh 70 performances like symphony performances per year. So it was a lot. And then I, after that and a little before that, a little before that, I had a museum client for a while when I was working at an agency, but after that I started my own business. I started getting clients who wanted to do retreats and who wanted to do networking events and that kind of thing, and so I definitely have some experience in all of these places. But I can do things from like small events, like little intimate retreats, to bigger scale events, like we need to sell lots and lots of tickets. So that's that's the point of view I come from on that that's amazing.
Speaker 1:And so do you have clients internationally, or do you only work locally? Or do you also work with clients that go on tour?
Speaker 2:So I currently am only out of the United States right now.
Speaker 2:I work remotely, so I mean I can, and I have come in for events like in other parts of the US, totally open to doing that for international clients as well.
Speaker 2:There is always that kind of challenge of understanding the culture there, because I mean, I noticed this even just within the United States Like I mean the United States, I think people sometimes make fun of Americans for not being well-traveled, but it's like the US is so big and so it's like, you know, I have a client down in Texas and it's, you know, the culture and just the perspective of the people who are going to their things are very different than people who are, say, in Seattle or who are in New York City or who are in Louisville, which that was also another thing. Like I had another client who's in Louisville who had a retreat in Louisville and it was just like a very different challenge, and so that that is one of those things where it's like I'd love to work internationally, but I also understand there's some cultural things and I have to rely on my client for that. But anyone who wants to do that please reach out. I love traveling, I love other cultures.
Speaker 1:Where have you been traveling, just you as a human being?
Speaker 2:Oh, my favorite place is Spain, of course, because I lived there for a little bit, but I also love the UK. I've been to France. I studied French in college. I'm very rusty with my French, let's see. I've been to Germany, the Germanic countries, a bunch of times. I'd love to go back to Japan, into Canada when else have I been? Scotland, netherlands, just a whole smattering of countries in there.
Speaker 1:When you work with clients. What sort of things do you do for them? Are you coming in as a consultant to establish a strategy or do you actually do the work on the ground? Do you do their social media or do you do their newsletters, or does it just depend on the ground? You know, do you do their social media or do you do their newsletters, or does it just depend on the gig? It?
Speaker 2:just depends on the gig and what the client's budget is. I will do some kind of more customizable services and some consultation for people who, you know, maybe they don't have a huge budget but they still need some ideas on like how to get started, how to avoid getting burned out. And then I also do some like more bespoke packages for people where we just customize everything and it's half production, half consultation and creating strategy for them. Some people really do need to really need help with that strategy, and there are just some people who just need to get some emails written and some social posts created and that's all I need to do for them. So, yeah, it's a mix of both and that's all I need to do for them.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's a mix of both. I was super excited to have you here to help me see a little bit clearer of what I could do. So to give the listeners a little bit of a context, you have seen my short film. I've sent you a very private link and so my short film that I made was an amazing team in Barcelona we were actually 26 working on that project. It's called All Dogs Go to Heaven. It's a 10-minute sci-fi, it's a dystopia. It's quite dark. There will be a trailer in the show notes for the listeners that will just want to have a feel of what the film is about, so maybe they can understand more the advice that would be given. I'll also read a very quick summary of what the film is about.
Speaker 1:So all dogs go to heaven, a short film, a 10-minute sci-fi in a dystopian world, in a society controlled by a neural ship designed to eradicate emotions. F1, a government scientist, faces a crisis of conscience when her final test subject, grace, shows unexpected resistance to the chip effects. As F1 delves into the mystery surrounding Grace, she uncovers buried memories of her own past, leading her to question the morality of her research and the true nature of the oppressive regime she serves. So, if you are our listeners, go to the episode notes and there will be a trailer. It's 45 seconds long or something. Kathleen, when you saw the film, and like when you just had a vibe of this sci-fi, what were your first thoughts? That kind of came up, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Okay, so these are actually the kinds of stories that I'm absolutely fascinated by. It reminded me if anyone has seen the show Severance, where basically these employees, they go into work and they have this brain, this chip in their brain, and they forget about their entire outside lives when they're away from work. They don't know what's going on at work. I just I love this sort of philosophical question of if you could take all the pain out of your life, would your life actually be better? And I think the film definitely shows like okay, it's not, it's never going to be better if you do that and you have to you, know you have to have the bad stuff along with the good stuff to actually have an enjoyable life.
Speaker 2:but I love at the beginning there are like a couple of people who've had this chip put in and they're basically saying, oh, this is great, I can just live my life without guilt or pain or suffering or anything like that. And I think we tend to look at those things that way, where it's like, oh no, we, you know, we have, you know, a human experience and have a good experience as a human. We need to have all of the experiences, not just one very narrow sort of way of looking at life and one way of experiencing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this film is really about? Are we ready to feel both sides of what life has to offer, both the highs but also the lows? And there is some sort of dark narrative, that sort of unravels in that film. All right, so basically I understand that, first of all, if I was to, with my other producers, if we were to think about private projections, in-person projections I think so at the moment because the majority of the team is is in Barcelona let's say that we would start in Barcelona. Then eventually we would want to organize private projections in other cities. But to keep it simple, for the first question is we want to do one in Barcelona. So I guess the first question we have to ask ourselves is who our audience is or would you start somewhere else?
Speaker 2:Who is your audience and why do they want to come to this thing? I know that's a question that's a hard one to answer, and I definitely asked it before, and people get offended when I ask. Sometimes I'm like, well, okay, how does this serve them and why is it that they want to go to this kind of thing? And I can help you narrow down your audience a little bit so you're not going too broad. I think sometimes we tend to try and boil the whole ocean by saying like no, it's for everyone. We want everyone to see it. You might want everyone to see it, but not everyone wants to see it and not everyone. This is not the kind of thing everyone wants to do, and that's a hard thing to come to terms with. But once you can do that, it's so much easier to find out who is the kind of person who wants to come to this, where do they hang out and how can I talk to them and how do they want to be talked to, um, and to also get a better idea of, like what the scale of this thing is. So we're starting out in barcelona and we have an idea of who these people are, but it's like do these people also exist in other places? How do we replicate this? Is this just going to be a one-time thing, or do we want to turn this into like a little mini short film festival?
Speaker 2:And I think that it's like a good place to start of refining your vision, refining who this audience is. How does this serve them, what value does it give to them and what does it bring into their life? And it can be a lot of things where it's like, you know, I think, especially post COVID, there are a lot of people who feel very lonely and they honestly just want to get out of the house and go interact with people who are interested in the same things that they are. And so you can start there and ask yourself okay, so they want to get out of the house, they want to interact with people. How much of it is going to be interaction? How much of it's going to be watching a movie? How much of it is going to be watching a movie? How much of it is going to be talking, and then work from there and try and build that experience.
Speaker 1:One of the things you said hey, could this eventually become a short film festival and then our film could be a part of it? Or would this be a short film plus other activities? I guess interactive activities that could be a Q&A. That could be other activities. Activities I guess interactive activities that could be a q? A. That could be other activities. For example, here, how would I make my decision? Or how, me and my other producers, how can we make our decision? Would we more go for? If we turn this into a mini short film festival, this means that we're gonna attract audiences from other people and then different audiences will interact. Or is it better that we say no, we need to build our audience only, but really develop the experience of what the event will be about? It's not because obviously, a 10 minute short film is not enough to have a whole event right. We would need to have something else happening around that. So on which criteria should we make our decision to go for one or the other?
Speaker 2:I think that depends completely on your goals. With a short film festival, there is a benefit there you reach out to audiences that you wouldn't normally be in their sphere, because you're also attracting other filmmakers and their followers and the people that are interested in their work and you're bringing them into your sphere here. But if you go the other way and you will just want to do one film and then create an experience around the film, then that's going to be serving a completely different need for the people who are coming. Where they're coming mostly for socialization. They're mostly coming to talk about the film, to talk about the philosophical questions that arise in the film, and so it kind of depends on your goals. What is your vision here? What do you want this to turn into and what do you want it to turn into long-term?
Speaker 2:I think if you want it to turn into something long-term, your small, mini short film festival is probably going to be a little bit easier to sell. Though, if you want to do cultural events where you're really just building a community and getting people to talk about philosophical questions and also like really drilling down on, if you just do one film and an experience around that, like how do you replicate that and why is it that people are coming not only to your first one, but your second one and your third one? Are they coming for the socialization aspect, or is it that every time you do this film it's we're talking about philosophical questions or we're talking about production like film production? So what you know need is that one just filling that. Maybe the other one isn't. What is your goal there and how do you want to replicate that over time?
Speaker 1:So there's also a question, the way that it lands right now. There's also a question of how do I want to contribute to the wider world. How do I, as an artist, want to contribute to the wider world in terms of, yeah, impact, my audiences? Basically, is there sort of a brand that I'm developing, want to contribute to the wider world in terms of, yeah, impact, my audiences? Basically, is there sort of a brand that I'm developing like philosophical questions about the future, sci-fi, whatever that is, or is it? No, it's actually about the experience of film and sharing with other people from the industry first, and that kind of trickles down to how the audience experiences it.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and it's like on the other side, if you do the film festival thing, you can also really curate that experience as well. So I mean, if this were like a consultation with a client, I would probably push them more in that direction, just because, one, it's going to be easier for them. Two, they're going to be working with other people's networks, and then, three, you can actually curate a really good experience the same way that you would over on just the single film side, but you also have a lot more people working on it with you, um, and so it could all be like these very sci-fi philosophical films on. You know, maybe you do just three or something in the course of one evening. They're all 10 or 15 minutes. Um, the little mini film festival might be easier for you to replicate.
Speaker 2:Again, this also depends on your goals. You want it to be a film festival might be easier for you to replicate. Again, this also depends on your goals. You want it to be a film festival? Maybe you just don't want it to be a film festival. You don't want to work with other people, you want to have the focus and spotlight on your just one film. But again, that comes down to goals, and what is it? How do you want to impact your audience? What do you want them to be able to get away? Bring away from it.
Speaker 1:If we were going to do the other route, which is one screening and then other activities around so that there is a true experience. What sort of activities could we do? Because, you know, when I'm thinking about different events I've been to, it's generally been a q a with the artists involved, eventually q a's around the topic. Are there any other things where you're like, creatively speaking, you could actually think about this? I've seen this being done before. What other, yeah, immersive, interactive things could we add to that right?
Speaker 2:that's also one of those things where it's okay so you can do the obvious things, where it's like you can have a bar in there, you can have an icebreaker event and you can have a photo booth or something. You know those things are always really fun, but I think you know, you, this is kind of where you want to start thinking about who your allies in the community are, who can help you create an event as well. Like, when I was watching this, the first thing that came to mind was like there is going to be some university philosophy department who is just going to eat this right up and reach out to those professors and ask which of their students would be excited to work on this with you, and that can turn into something like it can turn into an icebreaker game where it's like you know you have the film, but then you're also talking to each other about the philosophical questions that arise from it. Um, let's see what else is there. I mean, one of the big questions that comes up is mental health.
Speaker 2:Is this is like you know, do you want to completely get rid of your emotions or do you want to feel them, understand them and use them to build your life with them. And you know there might be like some really good, like mental health practitioners in the area who have a lot to say about this and we're going to, you know, want to. They're probably also going to have some ideas about what things to include in there. I would avoid having things like just a booth with a bunch of pamphlets, but, you know, having someone you can maybe talk about, have a panel discussion about, you know what is happiness, what is sadness, why do we feel these things? So you can have, uh, you know, just looking to like who can be your allies in this process, in this creative process. What can they contribute to this? And, you know, how does it actually relate to what I'm doing and how I'm fulfilling this need for my audience?
Speaker 1:there are three things that are um popping out from what you said. Number one is you mentioned the idea of a photo booth and I'm like ah, that is amazing. Like I remember I went to the birthday of a friend of mine and she really threw a party and we had a photo booth. There was something that circles 360 and it's a new thing that they throw in parties. Now I'm thinking all of that could really be even tailored towards take pictures with the characters or something in the movie. You can make something quite fun out of it. Or imagine that you are being chipped or you just got, you know, the chip has just been removed from from you, you know, or you escaped, or maybe there's even something in the photo booth where we could be creative with.
Speaker 2:So that was one thing. Yeah, oh, that could be so fun. Sorry, I just like I was thinking like in the movie. I think you have a little tattoo right there where that's like is that where your chip is? Yeah, yeah, hey, you should get some tattoos to give some people.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, we could do that as well, yeah, or even our makeup artist could be there and giving everybody the tattoo yes, awesome, I love that. And then we talked about having allies or finding organizations in our local area with whom we can partner up with, and so I guess the first route would be schools, but it doesn't have to be per se film schools. Film schools could come because we can talk about film, but maybe other schools could be interested because they want their students to develop their critical thinking, because they want their students to develop their critical thinking yeah. And then there could be other organizations that could be interested in having just conversations around where society is going and how we manage emotions. But that is to bring in bigger groups of people at once.
Speaker 1:Because I'm guessing I'm just continuing the brainstorm, right, because we are in this thought process. I'm thinking, maybe during the day we have a one-hour event, and maybe a school comes in. In the afternoon we have another school that comes in, and what? Another one-hour projection, and then in the evening it's more of a like individuals that we contacted, um, right, we have maybe even three different audiences and we have the room or the space or the cinema for a whole day, but we do three events in one day, so we make the most of the space we have and reach as many people as we could in one day.
Speaker 2:This is like such an American thing. Like every wedding I've been to, there's been a photo booth. But, like you know, this could also be one of those things where I had a friend who she did an influencer photo space and so she had all these rooms that were painted, fun colors and everything and to invite people in not only to do the screening and to ask the questions and to learn about these things. Learn about these things, but, you know, to I think there's an element there of, like you know, the more you integrate the actual experience of the film and the actual experience of being in the physical space, the more you're going to be able to build that audience further out, because, and then you know, I always recommend to have a branded hashtag and just put it everywhere. Tell everybody to take a photo, this is how you should post it. Please bust it with this hashtag, because then people can actually start seeing that experience, being like oh wait, that looked really fun. Maybe I should go to this thing.
Speaker 1:I love the idea of a branded hashtag being everywhere. That is so important because then also when you go back home, you can just search your hashtag and see how many people have shared about the event.
Speaker 2:That's a great way to collect also testimonials in a different, in a different way absolutely yeah and go in there and like comment on their stuff and, you know, say, hey, thanks so much for coming, we'd love to have you again. Yeah, that's one of those things where people get really excited when the people who are the actual artists are commenting and being like, oh my gosh, I love this, thank you so much for this. People get really excited when they start to feel like actually part of the community.
Speaker 1:So, yes, and so, going back to our allies in the community, yeah, would you have any? I mean, it's a broader subject and it would probably be a whole podcast episode in itself, but could you summarize in any nutshell a few top tips about how to actually approach, for example, businesses or organizations that could also add some money in the pot to organize these events?
Speaker 2:Right. This is one of those things where you have to consider it's like your audience what value are you giving them? But now it's your community allies what value are you giving them? And for some people like I mean, if it's a mental health organization, they're going to really love any chance they can talk about mental health resources, that kind of thing. But of course, you also need, like vendors and you need food people, you need someone to set up a bar, you need all these other things, and so obviously sometimes those things will cost money. But you can also sometimes tell them like, hey, they're going to be people here.
Speaker 2:If we set up a cash bar and we allow people to like your organization to take that money, or if we set up a food cart outside, we know that we can guarantee tons of people are going to be there and they're going to want to eat tacos, whatever it is you're selling. This is a chance for you to be able to not have to go and find the best place to go sell food that night. We know people are going to be here. We know they're going to want to be able to not have to go and find, like, the best place to go sell food that night. We know people are going to be here, we know they're going to want to be eating food, and then this is also another chance for you to look at other artists.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we're doing one film screening, but are there other artists in the area who love this kind of work? Do you know mural artists who can paint something in the space, if you're allowed to paint something in the space, of course? Do you know other artists who want to present their work that are in the same vein of sci-fi, futurism, curious about these philosophical questions? And just tell them like this is the value of you being at this event More people will see you, more people will want to talk to you. This is an opportunity for you to network, or this is an opportunity for you to sell something, and so framing it in that way is a lot more helpful into getting people there, and also getting people there where you don't necessarily have to pay them up front yeah, and I'm just again brainstorming and bouncing from your ideas, inviting other artists, food trucks, like, for example, in barcelona we have something called, and it's like a really massive road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a massive sort of road where a lot of tourists just walk right from one side to the city to the other, and it's full of artists such as, for example, people that are drawing caricatures. But then I'm thinking, oh, even something like somebody that does caricatures, maybe somebody can do sci-fi caricatures with this tattoo we have in the film and people can get their sci-fi caricature done just to add to the experience of being there, or something like that.
Speaker 2:I think that's the question of, like, how do you marry the experience with the actual film and, yeah, the idea of you know you have caricature artists there and people drawing you as like a sci-fi character. That actually helps pull the whole thing together, because the last thing you want is just an event where you have a movie that's completely unrelated to all the other things there and those things are all unrelated to each other because it just ends up being a hodgepodge of things. But to think about, like, who are your community allies, that and the other people who would want to be there and people who'd be getting value by being like a vendor there or value being an artist there, what they get out of it, and if they fully understand the actual concept that you're trying to, um, the concept that you are trying to achieve here, that I can like really pull the whole thing together what makes an event memorable?
Speaker 1:what?
Speaker 2:in your opinion makes it memorable.
Speaker 1:It's just not the average event. Yes, okay.
Speaker 2:So that's the thing is that people, they don't always remember details about things. There is really just a chance and like like please don't be sad about this if this ever happens to you that you have this beautiful event and the art is incredible and you have this great movie, and people go home and they like don't remember it, but they loved being there is that people don't always remember details but they remember how they feel and so, considering, like, what it, what it is being someone who's there and what makes that event really good and really fun and just really enjoyable to be there, like it's going to be a little bit different for everyone, but I think that's one of those things where make sure you do a walkthrough. Once you have all the programming in place, you know, once you know what vendors are going to be there, once you know, like you know what this is going to look like, the actual shape of the event, just put on your like audience shoes and walk through it. Like go through the space physically if you can, and go through that experience of okay, this is where I give them my ticket. This is where I pay for my ticket. This is where I go to eat food. This is where I go to look at art. This is where I go to go listen to this panel discussion and understand like what it is they might be feeling throughout that whole experience.
Speaker 2:Because I mean there's some like really technical things where it's like you have a music festival and the lines are really long and like I have seen this before where it's like someone goes to a music festival concert and the music, the artist is incredible, but then they go home and they complain about it and they leave the bad review on yelp and it's not. It wasn't because of the artist, it was because of the experience where it's like you know they're waiting in line all this time and they received it close to the port-a-potties and you they're just like the parking was bad and consider what that experience might be like, because it could be. You know you're going through this little mental walkthrough and hopefully a physical walkthrough if you can do this and you start to see, okay, we put the food people too close to the entrance and so now people can't get through the space and they're getting frustrated with how they walk through the space and so how do you build that space out and that experience out so that people are going through it with as little frustration as possible. And also, what is it that people can take away from it? I think that having like little tokens of your appreciation, whether it's like you know the photo booth, is a great thing, and I will always recommend a photo booth if at all possible, because then people actually get to take a physical or at least a digital item away from with them to be like, oh hey, I had this photo I can post online. It's very easy to post online and I want to post it online because, like, look at the background, it's really fun and I'm here.
Speaker 2:But to also consider, what are some other things you can do? Like I remember once when I was working for the opera, we had this libretti and libations thing where it was basically worked with a couple of the bars in the area. They made a custom cocktail for you know, la Traviata or just whatever opera we were doing at the time, and they we made a custom coaster. So if they ordered that particular cocktail, they would have this really beautiful coaster that they kind of wanted to take home with them because it was too pretty to throw away. And to consider, like, okay, what are the things that I can do there? Can I have bracelets, or can we do these tattoos or something that people can take away from the event and use it or show it off to other people, and it gets them talking to other people about this thing.
Speaker 1:I love it. I also love how you said walk through your event yourself because it's so. It is so true like sometimes I've been to just even a restaurant, but because the bathroom was so nasty all of a sudden the restaurant is amazing, the atmosphere is amazing because, because the bathroom is so nasty, you don't want to go anymore.
Speaker 1:Like that's it. Or sometimes, like you say, you go to a music event and the line is so like things are not running smoothly and all of a sudden you're just put off. You can't enjoy yourself anymore.
Speaker 1:That is so true, I love the fact that you talk about taking something physically. I'm going to talk a little bit about something more digital. Let me know if that is your area of specialism or not, but I know that a lot of theaters, broadway and stuff are going more into the NFT world. Is that something that you think? Yeah, apparently like now there are some shows that you can see and then you would have an NFT that comes with it. It's not like a unique NFT, but the NFT that a certain amount of people would have and it's related to the show. Would you say that that is a thing, or is that maybe not your specialty and you can't answer that? I don't know.
Speaker 2:I think, like that brings up some good questions. Ok, here's the thing. I still don't fully understand NFTs. There's my big admission there, but there's also part of me. That's okay. That could actually be cool and I think, especially for an event like this, where it's more sci-fi, it's more based in the future of technology, where an NFT could actually be a fun thing to do, I think the downside to that is that, since it lives in the digital world, you're going to have people who show up that probably don't know how to access it or don't understand what an NFT is they're like.
Speaker 2:Why did they just send me this picture? I don't understand it. So there's always that downside of not having a physical item. So it's like the movie Inception. So they go into their dreams and they keep going down and then they have what they call a little totem and it's like something that's completely unique to them. It's like a weighted chess piece or a top or something, and so they can use this thing in the dream and then they know that it's like they either know it's a dream or if they use it in real life, then they know that it's. They're actually still awake and they can tell the difference there.
Speaker 2:I think there's a similar principle here of if it's digital and it's not entirely real, it's a little bit easier to forget. Humans are social creatures. We experience the world through sight and touch and smell and all these other senses, and so the benefit to having a physical item with you, even if it's just like something that's consumable, like you know, you can get onto Eminem's website and just like order a bunch of Eminems that are custom colored and everything. You have custom images on them. That is going to be a little bit more memorable than an NFT where I mean, the benefit to that for me is like oh great, it's not going to collect dust at my house, but then I'm also going to be. It's really likely I'm going to forget about it.
Speaker 1:I hear what you're saying. There's the fact that it lives in a digital space, so it's not as present and you can forget about it. And, like you said as well, maybe not everybody is familiar with nfts, so it's almost like it's a whole audience, an all whole different audience in itself, that you're actually calling in to actually enjoy what it is, because they have heard of nfts or yeah, or of that space.
Speaker 2:They would be like okay, yeah, and that's the thing where it's like you have to understand your audience in that way, and that's going back to the first question and really understanding, like I mean, an exercise I would highly recommend is to go through your audience and talk about where is it that they live, what are their beliefs, what do they like to do, how old are they? Are they married? Do they have kids? How do they spend their free time? And understanding, like, where who these people are, where they hang out, what they have kids, how do they spend their free time, and understanding, like where who these people are, where they hang out, what they do, that can really help you decide. It's a digital gift, something that they actually want, where it's like. You know, if I were to do this at the symphony, the majority of people there are like in their fifties or older, and so they're just not going to understand what an NFT is. They're not going to understand why they want it. But if, like you, are trying to appeal to a bunch of like Gen Z kids they're actually they might eat that up.
Speaker 1:Like they might actually really enjoy that. I see what you mean. Okay, so now let's talk about the part that, for me, feels heavy, which is okay. It's great. We have, like, put so much energy in creating an amazing experience. We find our audience, we got people in. At the end of the day, it's a one event. Let's say that our event is an hour long, two hours long. Who knows right? Let's say that they pay 10 euros, $10, 20 euros, $20, whatever they pay their entrance fee. That's it, and then that's it. That's where I feel like, like, and now what? So how can we basically create long-term community knowing that I only have one product to sell, right, which is we have one event or one short film in person? Great, but now what? Like the event is over, we haven't maybe made that much money, even, maybe we even got even. How do we build long-term community where this can also help us build for the next movie and so forth?
Speaker 2:Right, that's one of those things. Right, we should probably like rewind a little bit back to the question of what's the vision for this event, and that's the thing to have a successful business model. I think, to some extent, the arts could probably benefit more from looking towards for-profit businesses and seeing how they run things and figuring out how to replicate and scale the works that they are selling. And that's not to say, like you know, don't be an artist. But you know also, if you want to be a successful artist, you kind of have to consider these concepts, right. So, like you know, how is it that we want to scale this long-term Like, is this just a one and done event? Maybe that's all you want to do? No-transcript, there's some security laws about that, so you're going to want to research that.
Speaker 1:So, just for the listeners, we have something called the GDPR and it's basically you need to put like a sentence when you collect people's emails that they agree in it, and it's sort of an extra agreement that people in the EU need to take before you can collect their emails and send them any sort of updates or newsletters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you are creating a website or if you are building an email list in the EU, a lot of the tools that you're going to use will know how to do that. So if you're using Wix or Squarespace or MailChimp, they are going to know how to do that and they're going to have tutorials on their website on how to make sure that you do that. And, of course, like this is again like wherever you go in the world, there are going to be different laws. There are going to this whole point of like. How do we replicate this event or even a similar event later on? The first thing I would recommend is, before you even announce anything, before you even say anything to anyone, is to build just a one page website, if anything. You can also make a bigger website if you want to, but having at least a one-page website where people know how to sign up for updates, they can buy their tickets through there and you have their information. And I mean I know for smaller events and I know getting started, like I had a friend who he did a bunch of storytelling events and the way that they would do this is they would just basically Venmo him their money and then he would like make sure that their name was written down somewhere and, like you can do that, I think you're doing a smaller scale event, like that's absolutely fine, there's no problem with doing that. But the issue comes back up of do you actually have their information for the next time and do they consent to you giving emailing them again about this whole thing where having a website where they can just type in their first name, their last name, their email address, their phone number if they want to give it, and then you just check a box, say yes, I agree to receive communications from you, and then automating that and this is a lot of like what my work is is basically how do we automate the website over to your email list and you know, using zapier or another tool like that, to basically pull everything that's entered here into here and have that information and tag them correctly to say this is just someone who wanted more information versus this is someone who bought tickets and treat them differently. Um, so basically, you know, I have one client who they have a website where they can either apply to go on a retreat or they can just ask for more information and depending on which one they choose, we know a little bit more about them. Like one is very excited, they want to go do this thing. They're willing to spend a thousand bucks to go do this. The other one isn't so sure, and so they need to have a little more reassurance and to set up emails.
Speaker 2:I always recommend doing automated emails for people who just joined your email list, to send them like two or three emails over the course of a week or two and say hey, this is who we are, this is what we're doing. These are the events coming up. This is why you should come, whereas people who buy a ticket and they know things right away you're going to want to start sending them emails to be like okay, we're so excited for you to come, this is what you can expect from it. This is how you should dress. We're going to have all these things here and then just keep pushing them in that direction of you're going to engage. This is going to be fun. We want you to have a good time.
Speaker 2:Versus. You need more information. So let me spell it out for you here, and that also goes later on, after the event, send everyone an email saying how did you enjoy this? If you enjoyed it. You can set up an automation through Zapier and MailChimp and everything. If you enjoyed, this is great. Thank you for saying you gave us five stars.
Speaker 2:Go over to our Yelp page and leave us a review, or go over to Google and leave us a review, or post your photo here so that we can see it and also bring up that branded hashtag again of you know, continue to remind people. Hey, post your photo, post your photo, post your photo. Um, and then that helps, like remind people. Sometimes people just like need to be you know to spell things out for them, and then maybe you can set up a follow-up email a few days later of hey, these are all the photos that were posted. Look at what a great time we had. Are you interested in coming to the next event? You can do a survey, you can have just a button to say hey, I'm interested in the next event, and it tags them and you know that those are going to be people who are going to show up at your next thing.
Speaker 1:And this is a big reminder to try and automate most of it, because obviously it takes time, a lot of time, to collect all this information. So the more we can automate it, and obviously the tools exist now to automate all of that, whether it's a sequence of emails or whether it's to collect testimonials and stuff. I just want to add a tiny little detail, because that is very different from the US. It's now in Europe. Not everybody does it, but actually we cannot collect emails anymore, just on paper or something.
Speaker 1:Or you know, if somebody pays something you said Venmo, I think or PayPal we cannot use that, collect that data and send them emails from there, like they literally have to agree to this GDPR rule. That's what the whole GDPR system was, because I lived through the transition before GDPR and after, and so apparently it goes so far that eventually, let's say that you have emails on a piece of paper from people and you put that in your rucksack and then you forget your rucksack somewhere and then people all of a sudden find that piece of paper with all these emails. You could actually be sued for that, because it's their personal data that you're putting out there. So this GDPR thing is quite strict in that sense. So if you are living in Europe, make sure that you do the right and correct research, because rules can be very different from other continents.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even in America. I think I would love it if we had these rules here, because it's just so annoying to like you sign a petition and then all of a sudden, your email's being used and all these other things. But that's just one of those things where you want to build goodwill towards your audience. You're going to respect that, and so don't just put things on a piece of paper where they just don't know where it's going to happen. Or, if they do, and if it's in the US and you can do this, email them. And then your first email should be do you work to get these emails? If no, click this link. If yes, click this link and then tag them automatically so that you're not bugging them, and that's the thing is like people don't like getting too many emails. They don't like getting marketed to too much, and if you want people to come to these events and not completely shut you out, you do need to be respectful of their time and their energy and their data so that they're not frustrated with you.
Speaker 1:It's so true. It's just an act of kindness and respect, respect. So let me just ask you now a follow-up question, which is okay, we have the data of the people. They are like yeah, we want to be a part of your tribe in your community. Contact me anytime. Should we just say from time to time, we're going to keep them updated until I have my next film, my next event, my next private projection? Or should we actually, from this private projection, think no, now that we have them as a community, we need to start thinking about other things that we could do with these people, aka, I don't know, a writing course, how to produce a movie course, other events around, like we had a makeup artist, for example, right, that did like special effects. Maybe our makeup artist can give some sort of makeup classes or whatever. I don't know. Should we think about these things as follow-up events or should we just say no, you know, you don't have to think about that yet. Just make your first event and then you'll figure it out yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that goes back to the question of, like, what is the vision here and how do you want to replicate this? And I think you know if you're going to do follow-up events, follow-up courses, that's one thing that you should be pretty clear about from the beginning of. Hey, after this event, we're going to send you some emails and we're going to give you some information about, like, writing courses or filmmaking courses or makeup courses, and if that's the model that you want to do and basically the film and the screening is the way to get people into that, then you'll be pretty clear about that, because, I mean, there's always again, kind of going back to that goodwill people can be really frustrated of okay, I went to this event, I thought I was going to film events, but now they're talking to me about makeup courses and that's not what I signed up for and making sure that they understand. That's the progression of what your business is about and what your event is about. But, that being said, I think you know the follow-up information. It kind of falls into a couple of categories. The biggest ones are Intel.
Speaker 2:So basically, one of the things you could think about is the people who are interested in.
Speaker 2:What else are they interested in? And I think the idea of having a chip in your brain or a chip in your body somewhere, that's so like Wired just did an article with the first guy to get an early chimp in his head and what his life is like now, and I'm like, okay, that would be interesting information to these people. The second would be ideas of what is it that we should be thinking about? What questions do you have? Can you join our community on discord or whatever, and let's talk about these things. And the third one would be inspiration of like. Look at the cool things Like this is where the photos of like encouraging people to follow up with their photos and post it and then following up in an email, like that's kind of an inspirational thing of oh yeah, we had this event, I forgot, it was fun, it made me feel good. So those are kind of your three main categories of what you want to follow up with people, but always just understanding it's relevant to what they experienced while they were there.
Speaker 1:So now we started this sort of thought process, thinking okay, majority of the team making this short film was in Barcelona. Our first event is in Barcelona. What if we want to replicate this event in other parts of the world? For example, my nonprofit is based in Belgium. One of the other producers, john. He studied in Miami and he has a large network in Miami. We have people that are from Cuba, argentina, italy on the team. Who knows, maybe they have contacts to make something happen in other parts of the world. How can we now make this event not just in Barcelona, but also go and replicate somewhere else?
Speaker 2:So that's one of those things where, okay, if you're going to replicate an event in different places because I have another client like this who we have events in certain cities, but we had noticed that the first couple of times we did events in certain cities, but we had noticed that the first couple of times we did events in these very specific cities, it was really hard to build an audience. And I think, being realistic about that, okay, we started in Barcelona, but now we want to go to Milan. The thing is, you don't have an audience in Milan yet, and so you're going to be doing a lot of what you did here in Barcelona to Milan. And yeah, that's again going back to the whole vision of this thing. Like what, how do you want to scale this? The first few times that you do this event are going to be really hard. You might not make money, but you're building your business and you're building your foundation. And so, let's say, we go over yeah, we go over to Milan or like Berlin or wherever you want to go, and we're going to be doing a lot of the same things. We're going to be finding those allies, we're going to be creating a page for these people. We're going to be figuring out, like who wants to come to this thing, finding the food carts and doing the same thing. But once you have that, once you actually have that, you have to copy and paste it a little bit, obviously understanding there are going to be some cultural differences and not being too upset if, like, people in Berlin are just not interested in this. I don't know, maybe they aren't Copying and pasting it. But then, once you have it pasted, building it from the ground up, and so, now that you've done this first event, it's going to be a lot easier to do the second one.
Speaker 2:No-transcript, like I would say, let's do maybe three locations to start with, and three locations where your team has the most contacts, and then you have, like, most friends and they have the biggest network, and then start there and once you start to see success from it, then start thinking, okay, where's the next place we can go? I think some of the like worst business advice is to like just scale and try and build this thing really fast. I think that's a great way to burn yourself out, because I think, especially for a smaller event like this, you're going to be using people's networks and you're going to be wearing them out and it's going to be a lot of you reaching out to people on LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever and getting really tired of having to do that over and over again. So maybe starting in one or two cities, maybe a third one, if you really feel like you can do it. Building that audience there and then building it up is a great way to start that process.
Speaker 1:Unless eventually let me know what you think, but those are things I have done in the past Unless the event in Barcelona is extremely successful, we document it well and then we sell the event as a package to a local organization in another city, saying we bring our expertise, we bring the film, the experience, but you bring in the audiences but we sell it to you as an event, as a packaged event. Yeah, you basically fund it, but we don't take charge of the marketing or the audience building. You do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually, I think that's a really good idea. That's I mean, that's how a lot of arts events are marketed now is that basically create an event and you are able to sell the event to other people and again kind of going back to the question of what value does it give them and, if you can like really start your event planning process of what value does this give people and how can I sell that value to someone else. So it's like you know you're going over to Paris or something you know. Why should someone in Paris really care about what I did here and really making sure that you're very because?
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 2:That's the thing is that a lot of times, when you're selling things, it's not the best product that wins, it's the best communicator that wins. And so being able to show hey, this is what happened in Barcelona, this is what happened really well, here are the data points. Let me tell you why this should matter to you, or why it does matter to you, instead of, like you shouldn't tell people how they should feel, but telling them why this is important to them and why they're going to like it, and then being able to sell that over to them as well, that's a great way of doing that.
Speaker 1:I love what you said. It's not the best product that wins, it's the best communicator that wins. That is really a gem. What about scaling? All of them? What about scaling? So let's go back to Barcelona. We created an event in Barcelona. Is there anything top tips that you could give about scaling it, Staying in Barcelona or just making it bigger?
Speaker 2:I think it's like such a new way of running a business but to think of like your products you're selling. This is just like very simple. Okay, we're making widgets, and how do we sell those widgets? And I think sometimes, like people start with like the biggest widget and they're like I need to sell this really really, really big widget. And not understanding like you should have a couple of tiers. This is just stories from learning how to run my own business. I have a couple of tiers. This is just stories from learning how to run my own business.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of bespoke products and then learning like I need to have a fewer, just more productized products of things that I can sell that are smaller, more affordable, easy to people who can't really afford or, frankly, maybe don't even really need my bespoke product, and so how can I sell that to them. And then also think of what are the more passive things that I can sell. Like you can do a lot of like you can go to Printify and do print on demand things and be like, okay, yeah, if people are interested in my organization, what are some kind of passive things I can do? You can design a couple of t-shirts, put them on your website and then Wix or Squarespace or whatever website you're building or you're using, we'll sell them for you and making sure that you have those ads in your emails and that kind of thing. But scaling it, that's that thing where it's like so far, what we have defined as this project. This is a big bespoke project. So what is the thing below that? Is it an online streaming course? Is it a?
Speaker 2:We do a webinar about film production for people who came to this event and, you know, invite local universities or something to come into it and you sell it for a much smaller price or you can even just sell it for free to build up traction for your next event.
Speaker 2:But what's the thing that doesn't require as much work but still fulfills the same need that we found that our audience needs this value and I like that idea of okay, if you're like, really straightforward from the beginning of we are using this event it's the big bespoke event to sell, kind of our more prototyped service of we have a six-week filmmaking course that we can sell people. It's cheaper, it's going to be online and so we don't have to have a space for it. There's not as much effort, not as much money going into it, but it still meets this need. We invited like 30 film students and they're interested in this and they like the idea of making short films, but they just don't know how to write for it and to offer that to them as well for example, if I'm thinking about tears here, let's say that I'm doing a live podcast, right, and I'm going to record this live podcast at this event about a specific, specific topic.
Speaker 1:Maybe people can just yeah, maybe people can just sit in the audience while we're recording a live podcast and that's free. And then the first tier would be you come and see the film and that's just the entrance to see a 10 minute short film, and then you have a second tier, which is you pay for the film plus the q a. There's a second tier and then you have and the podcast and the film and the q a and an additional experience. That's the third tier, and then the full experience, the full packages. Come and network in the evening with other filmmakers or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that could, for example, an example of how you would have different tiers, for example yes, yeah, I think that would be good, especially if you're thinking about, like, how do I scale the events at the actual event. And I mean, you know, performing arts organizations do this all the time of you. Look at their ticket maps and how things are scaled there. It's the best seats. They're always going to be the most expensive ones. But this has definitely changed in the last couple of years where they found like, okay, you can't just people put people out in like the nosebleed seats and expect them to be happy about it, and so to have, like some of those like $10, 10 Euro seats just scattered around as well.
Speaker 2:So the, you know the plebes can go, you know, hang out with the rich people too. But having can go, you know, hang out with the rich people too. But having scaling things in that way of like we have one event and we have multiple scales to it is a great way to think about that. Where it's okay, the base price you have here is 10 euros. People want to do a little bit more and they want to have a little more fun than they can pay 15 or 20, or if they want to have a pool VIP experience and sell that to them, as not only are you getting this really fun experience, but you're also you're helping artists. You know part of the proceeds to this go to this mental health organization that we've been working with. That's also a great way to sell a little bit more value to the people who are coming to this event.
Speaker 1:Love it. Is there anything that I have not asked you yet and where you're like Cindy, one or two top tips extra and I'm leaving you with this for today?
Speaker 2:Oh boy we covered a lot. The one thing I would want to tell people is think about who's going to spread the word of this for you. We touched on it a little bit, but it's like I remember talking to someone who she was interested in my services and she's like I'm so exhausted. I worked so hard to get people to this last event. Not a lot of people came and I just want to be able to do this in a different way. And what she was doing was she was getting on LinkedIn and she was inviting everyone in her, like everyone of her contacts, to this, this event, personally, changing the email to every single, like the LinkedIn message to something completely different for each person. She went out and she bought cookies and tried to like give these cookies to people with little invitation on them.
Speaker 2:And you look at that and I'm like that's a lot of value up front for something that I just might not have time to go to, and so it's like you know't, wear yourself out, find out if you're in your community who have your friends, who have your contacts. We'll spread the word of this for you. Give them a little bit of value and then tell them, and sometimes you just have to be really straightforward and say, hey, I need people at this event and I know that we have a good relationship. We have a really good working relationship. I know this is something that you enjoy.
Speaker 2:Will you tell other people? Like, go tell three other people about this event, share the website URL and let's get some people there? And that kind of goes back to like having the community allies, but also just thinking about who are your friends, who, like really has a stake in making sure that you are a successful person. And there are, I'm sure there are like plenty of people out there that, like love you and care about your projects and just ask them, like even if it's your mom, and just ask okay, spread the word of this for me while I'm doing my other marketing efforts and you know, on the backend, you're going to be doing ads, you're going to be doing emails, you're going to be doing all these other like more digital marketing things. But, yeah, find out who, like your personal allies are those people who can spread the message of this for you.
Speaker 1:Never underestimate the power of word of mouth. Yeah, this was such a really exciting brainstorm. If people want to work with you as a coach, as a consultant, as somebody to develop their strategy, or to be the person that is doing all the groundwork for their marketing, where can they find you? Where can they contact you and find out more about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they can go to my website, kathleensykescom, which I'm sure you'll put in the notes, and my email is hello at kathleensykescom. Also, I'm on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:I will basically take anyone's connections and also don't underestimate the power of LinkedIn, because you and me we actually met on LinkedIn and you gave me like a free coaching session because I was trying to figure out my ways with the podcast and stuff and I got so much value out of it and then we had a really good vibe. And then here you are on the podcast. So yeah, it's just fantastic.
Speaker 2:Well, it was such a delight to talk to you and I'm like, yes, this is the kind of like creative stuff that I love doing and I love like bouncing ideas off of people. So, yeah, that was actually a very fun phone call.
