Tomorrow (May 13th) meet us at Uwajimaya in the International District at 7:30 and we’ll bike down to Honk! Fest in Georgetown. After the fest, we’ll be heading to Hazard Factory at 7th & Chicago for a kick ass after party.
Lots of zany fun will be had, so get yer bike on and partay, because nothing says fun like punk rock marching bands and people who like to blow stuff up.
“HONK! Fest West is a free, three-day, community-supported music festival devoted to marching bands, drum corps, samba lines, and anything acoustic and mobile that makes a ruckus. We are also partial to street performers, dancers, and artistic appreciators.” according to their website. According to Sylvie it is “Ahhhhh-maz-ing”.
So come on out to Georgetown Friday, Gasworks Saturday and the Seattle Center Sunday for free entertainment from wild marching band enthusiasts.
And it’s time start planning this year’s SBMF. We’re looking at a date in early July for the event; we’ll post as soon as we come up with a solid date.
In the meantime, we’re seeking new volunteers to help organize and promote, and fundraise for the event. Do you want to help? Here’s a list of things that need to be done ASAP:
Musicians! We need bands to play. Are you in a band? Everyone is Seattle knows someone in a band — help spread the word that we’re seeking brilliant musicians again this year!
Kickstarter / fundraising. We need money to make some necessary upgrades to the sound system, buy ads, etc.
Publicity – We need fliers and posters again this year. And a blogger… We should really publicize the event as much as possible – get the media to run stories, post fliers around town, maybe create some random bike/music guerrillla art to help boost interest.
We could use a good press kit – if you have experience creating these, that would be awesome.
build a street team – people who can go out around town and plaster fliers / posters / art everywhere.
Sound:
The sound equipment we had last year was on loan and is now back in LA. Do you have a PA or access to sound equipment we could use? We need mic stands, monitors, everything and anything to help improve the sound. Got contacts or suggestions? Send ’em our way.
Also, we need a great sound engineer person. Can you donate your time or expertise? Got any connections?
We need to improve the generator – it was too noisy last year, and it was kind of an inefficient system. If you have any ideas about upgrading the system, or know anything about electronics or engineering, that would be great.
Permits and venues – I have a great contact at the City of Seattle Parks Dept, but I need help just coordinating some of the other stuff. Also, finding locations for shows is pretty essential.
Mechanical engineering – are you a mechanical genius? Like working with your hands? Welding? Yep, we need help there, too.
Community support – get people excited about the music festival, contact as many people as we can and try to increase awareness. Brainstorm organizations that might be interested in supporting our mission – CBC, Alleycat Acres, WA Bike Alliance, Bike Works, The Bikery, Vera Project, Seattle Feet First, Seattle Public Utilities, various neighborhood groups and events, etc.
Gathering donations / grant writer – if you can garner donations (both cash and in-kind) from local businesses, that would be wonderful. We received many generous donations from local businesses last year; if we can match or exceed that, it would be amazing. I have a huge list of companies and organizations to contact, that either helped us or had potential to help last year, but I just don’t have the time to send out requests.
Many people from throughout the community came together to make SBMF an incredible event. I’d like to take a minute to give a shout-out to all our sponsors who helped make SBMF a huge success! Please support their businesses as you go about your bicycling activities:
Aaron’s Bike Repair – In addition to procuring most of the awesome raffle prizes, Aaron and his partner Padme (who also happens to be last year’s SBMF coordinator!) spent the entire day at the music festival. Aaron brought his tool kit with him and not only acted as Bike First Aid, but he also helped fix the system when the system was down.
20/20 Cycles – And speaking of awesome raffle prizes, Alex from 20/20 hand-picked a whole heap of prizes from the shop. We gave away those prizes at the Rawk & Roll Alleycat at the beginning of the summer, and he also provided us with a couple of lights for the back of Haulin’ Colin’s trailers.
Haulin’ Colin Trailers – I can safely say that the SBMF would not have happened without the use of these trailers. Not only did we use them on the day of the event, they were invaluable in making the necessary preparations prior to the event. I actually hauled 300lbs. of sound equipment from Capitol Hill to Wallingford one day! It was the slowest I’ve ever ridden, but hauling 300 pounds on the back of a bike is no small feat. Definitely wouldn’t have happened without the trailer though!
Recycled Cycles – Recycled Cycles donated $100 in gift cards, which we raffled away at the Alleycat Race and at the event on Sept 11th. Sweet!
Babeland – Babeland gave us a couple of gift bags that we also used for the raffles. They made some people very happy at the end of the day, I’m sure!
Mobius Cycles – Niki allowed us to use her shop as a starting point for the Rawk & Roll Alleycat. It was awesome and made for a great meeting point! If you haven’t been to her shop, you must visit – there are lots of beautiful bicycles all over the place, and she also has billiards and fooz ball tables set up. There are also a couple of artists’ studios in the loft, making this an incredible multi-use space.
Wright Brothers Cycle Works – Charles, the owner of Wright Brothers, was super accommodating, donating lots of prizes that we used for the Rawk & Roll Alleycat, and allowing his shop to be one of the stops in the scavenger hunt. Not only that, but that man knows his wheels and chain rings! There was one day where I had bent one of my front chain rings horribly; I limped from Golden Gardens to his shop thinking I’d have to shell out at least $50 for a new front chain ring, but he happily bent it back into place like it was butter. Magic!
The City of Seattle – While not an “official” sponsor, they were a huge help in planning this event, specifically Randy Wiger, who was an absolute god-send. Seriously, this guy attended our planning meetings, gave advice and council, and even helped us wave several of the normal park fees, since we’re a non-profit that was utilizing under-used parks. Randy would say he was just doing his job, but I would say he helped make SBMF a HUGE success! Seriously, that guy is awesome!
smART Ventures Seattle – I know I mentioned this in the previous post, but smART Ventures gave us a grant for $1000 to help pull off SBMF. Super awesome! If you’re looking to do anything art-related in the city, definitely look into applying for grant funding. They were also really helpful in the whole grant-writing process.
And of course, thanks to all the super rad volunteers who gave up their evenings and weekends to plan and build SBMF from scratch! Holy cow, this could never have happened without y’all!
And of course all the musicians, who came out and enthusiastically donated their time and art so we could have a fabulous event. I hope that you will support them in the future and go to more of their shows! I know I will!
And especially, thank you to everyone who attended SBMF this year, whether it was just for a few minutes or for the entire day. SBMF is about community, and community made it happen. Keep an eye out — we’re going to keep doing events all year long!
The Seattle Bicycle Music Festival would not have been possible this year without funding from the City of Seattle’s smArt Ventures Grant, which has helped greatly to offset many expenses. If you’re at all interested in making a project like this happen, or even if you want to work on another large-scale community art project, you should look into this grant!
Also, starting next week, I will be taking a grant writing class. I’m hoping to be able to apply for some other grants that will help us make the Seattle Bicycle Music Festival even bigger and better next year!
Did you get a chance to see Ethan Perry’s tremendous performance in Ballard in Saturday morning? In case you missed it, he’ll be playing Friday night at 122 Winslow on Bainbridge Island, from 7-9:30pm. You should really go check out this extraordinary artist, especially if you’re looking for a nice, romantic evening in a lovely location.
It was such a great event, and a beautiful day for the event! I can’t thank everyone enough for coming out and making the day a huge success!!!
I saw a lot of cameras out at SBMF on Saturday! If you have photos that you want to share, please add the links in comments. And if you post to Flickr, please tag the photos “SBMF2010”. It will help tremendously to keep things together.
UPDATE: Here’s a video filmed by Tom of Seattle Bike Blog during No Rey‘s performance. He shot it while he was powering the pedal-powered generator, so it’s a little shaky. But it gives a good feel for what it was like to participate fully in generating the great music!
Seattle Bicycle Music Project 