You may have heard that next year to continue AlgoRhythms we’ll need to start paying a venue fee that has been kindly waived this year.
This has allowed us to grow without pressure and blossom into something really special.
I’m not seeing this as a crisis but an opportunity.
We’ve had some brief discussions about this as a community at the beginning of the summer, which were mostly supportive with some concerns.
The management of The Carpet Shop love us and what we’re doing - the spirit of it, the freshness, lovely audiences and artists, all the excitement - they want it to continue.
Money is horrible and I love to avoid it as much as I can, however - we live in capitalism and the venue has bills to pay.
For example, at the last event we fell short on the minimum bar take by about ~£40 which means the venue are funding us, effectively.
They’re going to help us apply for actual funding and also Peckham Digital are going to help too 😊
Until that has happened though we might need to charge entry - this is what I’m thinking:
Charge £5 entry
Have a £10 supporter tier
Depending on how many of each we sell we should be able to cover the hire. We may also be able to offer a travel stipend of £70 for one artist to come from out of town.
We probably won’t be able to pay performers and this would also be logistically difficult. Performers shouldn’t need to pay-to-play though so we’ll try to think of a way around that?
A free ticket tier for performers?
We could also make it purely donation based.
We might be able to pay £50 for managing the insta account, and making posters. At least that would be nice to do.
I might also take a cut depending on what’s left - not to ‘make money’ but it does take quite a lot of time and energy behind the scenes - getting things set up on the night, tech/artist support and generally doing simple ‘glue’ tasks. I completely acknowledge that the performers make the night what it is, as well as people like Lu who often runs the meetup part, helps with insta and promo, streaming and documenting, web infra and contributes amazing energy! Rory has helped with insta and many others like V, Tom, Laura, Tyler, Mike have done amazing posters.
We’ll also publish figures for full transparency.
We’ll also need help getting the word out to the kind of lovely people who come along and enjoy the vibes - creative and nerdy people who would love the event!
Usually we have about 40 to 50 people - which is great - I would be happy with five! But this is not my living room and tbh there are prob loads of people who would enjoy it - lets include them 😃
Being able to keep going with regular events was always a core objective - that was a reason to make it free and simple, now it’s a reason to think about finances.
And the night will probably be stronger - more sustainable - and even more valued.
Let’s also not forget that this event is just one part in a thriving community of live coding happenings - long may that continue!
As always, your thoughts are appreciated (whether by email, mastodon, or the usual channels) 🧡