One big Hangaree?

[Cannibal]

I am a professional special events producer (our festival last weekend brought in over 200,000 people into our town of 25,000) and would be happy to answer questions, lend advice or a hand if needed. Love the idea. Central location to core of hangers and vendors would be key.....

Cool!
Take a look at this thread. We discussed it a bit a while ago, but I bet you would have a lot to add to it in terms of feasibility and concept.

[Counselor]

i like where this is good - "HAMMOCK-STOCK"

we need to get the following vendors:
WarBonnet
JRB
Speer

Those are a must!

[lar-i]

Cool!
Take a look at this thread. We discussed it a bit a while ago, but I bet you would have a lot to add to it in terms of feasibility and concept.

Ok....I went through and read all of the previous thread and my first impression was Cripes! there are a lot of members of this forum with the perfect credentials and experience to get this idea of an annual festival off the ground and running. So what happened?
What is the single one reason, excuse, or whatever that is preventing someone from taking the ball and running with it?
May I venture a guess as to what that answer would be??
Money, bucks, moolah, greenbacks, the green stuff, and time.
Let's face it. An event of the size and scope that I originally envisioned (and I believe Cannibal envisioned too) would cost a serious amount of money to pull off.
It would take a pretty good amount just to begin to put an event like this together before 1 admission ticket could be sold.
The 'time' or hours that would be required to put this event together would be enormous. It would obviously require a committee of unpaid volunteers to form a board, establish rules, raise money, solicit for sponsors, putting together an event plan, etc. etc. etc.

Do we have what it takes as a community of hammock campers to pull this off?

Let me ask this of all the professionals out there with event planning experience. What would be the very first step that would have to be taken to make something like this a reality?

For what its worth I would personally be excited to be part of putting an event like this together. I don't have a lick of experience in something like this but I am durn sure I could learn. Let's not just talk the talk. Anybody can do that.

[Cannibal]

Money, bucks, moolah, greenbacks, the green stuff, and time.

Yep!

I think what happened was we tried to enter a sprint race before we figured out how to walk a straight line. I've been involved in several events out here now, both ones I organized for small groups of 5-15 people and large city-wide festivals that I've attended as a display vendor. In fact, I've got a few people coming over to my place this afternoon to try out hammocks. Takes a lot of work either way.

But, time and money aren't the only issues. Logistics of an event like we were discussing in the other thread are substantial. There is insurance to be bought, stands to be acquired, permits to be issued, event staff to organize, marketing, etc. All of which would require some heavy sponsorship, which of course means getting people to go round-up sponsorship money. It's a huge undertaking for a bunch of people that would much rater spend time laying in a hammock. Don't forget, the businesses that would be happy to sponsor us at this point are mostly cottage shops; they struggle to meet the expenses of running their own business selling gear that has a retail mark-up less than most pet supply stores. As much as they'd like the exposure, there is only so much they can contribute financially.

Now don't get me wrong, I'd love to see something like that happen in the future, but it will take resources well beyond what we have in place as a group. Attroll actually set-up a forum for a few of us to chat about doing an actual event, but nobody (myself included) has talked about it in a long time. I had a big smile on my face when I saw this thread and am happy to see new members thinking along the same lines. I waited to post that link until I saw serious interest and I posted it to provide some reference information that has already been discussed.

In hindsight, I think we were reaching way too far too fast. As I've researched this over the last several months I've found that some of the most successful large events started with much more humble beginnings and developed into the events they are today. Ever heard of Trail Days? It sure wasn't what it is now.

We (HF members) started with the occasional group hang-out, a few of which became annualized and are looked forward to by the people lucky enough to be in the general area and willing to travel a little. I've seen more group hangs in the last few months than I've seen in the previous 2 years on this forum and it is fantastic! Makes sense as our membership grows away from being an east coast centered group; We're Worldwide now Baby! I think the next logical progression is exactly what this current thread is suggesting; a large centralized group hang. Not the far reaching 'festival'. There's a reason my thread has the words "pipe-dream" in the title.

There have been offers of land use in this thread, which is HUGE. My suggestion would be to take somebody up on it and set a date. We're talking about HF members and friends, so I assume insurance would not be needed and private land not generating revenue wouldn't need permits. No vendors, no merchandise, none of the stuff that makes a festival difficult. Let's just do a massive group hang. In a few years, those of us on the forum today can tell the young members about how "it used to be" when it was just a small group hang of a few dozen people that didn't even have funnel cake.

I think a festival will happen given time. A massive (by our standards) group hang would be a great cornerstone on which to build. Who wants to volunteer some property for a group hang and what dates do you want to offer it to a bunch of no-good hangers is the only real question that should be asked. Once that is arranged, I suspect the rest will fall into place.

Cannibal the eternally hopeful.

[pedro]

What about the idea of having several smaller group hangs on the same weekend? How about linking them all together via electronic wireless comm. of one flavor or another?

This may sound stupid on the face of it, but if the communications end of it could be worked out, then smaller groups of people could gather in places that were closer to home, and organisational duties could be spread out among a larger group of people. If each group is relatively small, the environmental and financial impact goes way down.

So why link all of these smaller hangs together? I can think of a couple applications, but nothing that isn't already being done right here on this site 24/7.

Just a semi-random thought.

[MacEntyre]

Pedro, that is a great idea!

In other words, live video, image and text reports from the field to the HF forum!
That way, the HF forum becomes 'One Big Hangaree!'

Who can work out the technical end, Angrysparrow?

- MacEntyre

[Beast 71]

Maybe It would be better to have a less organized outing. It would be more likely to happen and it could always evolve into something bigger and badder at a latter date. If admission was charged somebody or somebodies would be on the hook for liability. If it was a donation only event on public land, or on private land in a state where a land owner can't be held liable for injuries that happen while recreating on their land, money raised could go to the HF, or to the land owner, instead of an insurance company. Sometimes, when you do the donation thing you may even raise more money than if you have admission, plus people can pay what they can afford. If this event atracts vendors then maybe we could think about charging for booths to foot the bill.

[MacEntyre]

There's an app for that, but only on jailbroken iPhones, I think there are versions for blackberry and android phones though.

In the iPhone Apps thread, Hetaroi points to an app for Pedro's suggestion.

[Diamond Diggs]

i like where this is good - "HAMMOCK-STOCK"

Thats what I was thinking....
If someone is willing to donate their private land.... just set a date and show up like cannibal was sayin - big events do have humble begginings, but they never would have had a beggining if they never followed through with the plan!

We have the HF to use to build it up, get the word out, and get everyone all excited about it..... and I have a feeling there are probably quite a few members on here that have musical talent and would not mind showcasing those talents for us..... Just one HUGE group hang!

[Counselor]

I agree - let's just worry about getting people together first - we can grow from there.