SparkCon Planning

All- this was a fantastic experience and certainly the best SPARKcon yet! We connected to more creative talent than ever with a much larger attendance. We certainly ’sparked’ some interest in the media as well and loved the attendee quotes in the N&O article Sunday. It seemed they understood all of our intentions quite well.

We had a great ideaSPARK session all weekend and created a concept and prototype website for Raleigh360 to “create a culture of localism.” We hope to pitch this website to city leaders on how to encourage local businesses to hire local talent for their projects. It ends up being just in time to make it for Raleigh’s own public input process for their website!

Beth has already made a slideshow movie of fashionSPARK. We eagerly await Cheryl and others to submit their thousands of images as well as Eric and Alex to get their dozens of hours of footage in. We’ll have them posted on the main site under the “news” section.

Don’t forget to submit your SPARKcon documentation for the photo contest or video contest!

Please submit any feedback or links to chatter about SPARKcon as comments on our website so we can continue to build this great effort. Thank you everyone!

Aly, Gab, Ty and Greg

As per tradition, we will be formally inviting the Mayor and City Council to join us for SPARKcon at their regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday. The meeting starts at 1 pm. We are not scheduled to speak until 2 pm, but they may shift the schedule forward for us. Wear your SPARKcon shirts and represent!

It is the week of SPARKcon! It has been a long road of planning, organizing, networking, and preparing. Now it time to enjoy everyone’s hard work!

SPARKcon’s hosting one last meeting tomorrow night at Designbox at 6pm.

Any last minute concerns or questions you may have, this is the opportunity to voice them!

See you then.

Okay everyone, we are less than two weeks away!
Our final general meeting is tomorrow night at designbox at 6pm!

It is very important that everyone attends so we can work out final details before next Friday.

See you all there!

323 W Martin St
Raleigh NC, 27601

Chico Scott has put together some exciting stuff for this weekend. Check out the details…

First Friday kicks off tonight all around beautiful downtown Raleigh, and as far as I know all the galleries are doing their regular thing tonight in spite of the weather. I’ll be at Flanders Gallery @ Seaboard (6pm) DJing for the opening of a very cool show ( http://www.flandersartgallery.com/). After that you have tough choices. I’ll be spinning an 80s dance set upstairs at Riviera (Loft 135), DJ Castro is at The Globe (510 S. Glenwood), and Chuck Love is at Mosaic. I do believe that Mosaic has the angle on that one.

However, tomorrow night, September 6, is Neu Romance’s second annual “Disco Inferno” - A Fundraiser for SparkCon. This year the disco ball at Alibi is the perfect setting for Castro, Mark T., Drew Diggle, and myself (Madcow) to drop the best of 70s and 80s funk, soul, and disco hits AND obscurities. For those of you in the know expect lots from SalSoul and West End records! Admission is only five bucks (it will be the best dance party in town that night), and all proceeds go towards paying off Stacy Kidd (stacykidd) for the Sept. 20 Solas show. By the way Solas is free before 10pm and has a dress code. Check out their website for more info on that (http://solasraleigh.com/). Also Saturday’s “Disco Inferno” is conveniently located in a former bomb shelter that can withstand a category five hurricane (or a nuclear assualt), and with the help of a generator and a fully stocked bar that party will happen no matter what. Be prepared to sweat!

Friday 9/5 - DJ Madcow @ Flanders Gallery
18 Seaboard location / 6pm

-DJ Castro @ Alibi Bar
14 West Martin St. / 10pm

-Chuck Love @ Mosaic (Critic’s Pick!) / 10pm
517 W. Jones St. (http://www.mosaicwinelounge.com/)
Admission $5

-DJ Madcow @ Riviera’s Loft 135 / 10:30pm
135 S. Wilmington St

Saturday 9/6 - DJs Madcow, Castro, Mark T., and Drew Diggle
Second Annual Disco Inferno - A Fundraiser for SparkCon
14 West Martin St. / 9pm Admission $5
(This show is hurricane proof)

Be sure to check out this years list of talented designers who be showing original works on the runway at fashionSPARK 2008!

Visit the fashionSPARK page to view the designers!

Attention all SPARK organizers. Greg needs to know what you need to put on your SPARK (shopping list), what your budget is (how much $ you need vs. how much $ you raised) , and what your absolute final schedule is.

Please send this info asap! The sooner it comes, the sooner we can secure all these items.

The healthSPARK organizers have been working very hard to develop a schedule and gather support from their community. The main focus of their SPARK is the health Challenge. It will give the public an opportunity test out new daily choices and see the benefit. They are also offering presentations and demonstrations throughout the day on Saturday in Moore Square. For more details visit their page on the sparkcon website.

To learn more or get involved, stop in to one of their potlucks Friday nights from 5-7p at the Body Center located at 115 N Lord Ashley Rd, 27610, or contact Nina Be at bodycentering@gmail.com

Last nights meeting saw close to twenty faces in attendance, some new, and others who have been entrenched with SPARKcon since the beginning.

The main focus was unveiling the master schedule of events for the whole weekend. Greg ran through each day’s agenda and noted whether events were confirmed or still awaiting final details. SPARK reps offered more info to further clear up their activities. Each SPARK will now funnel updates as they happen to ensure the schedule is as up to date and specific as possible.

Another new topic was the addition of individual SPARK pages on the PLANNING website. The purpose of the planning site has been to keep all information available to organizers and SPARK reps and allow them a forum for discussion and idea sharing. This will still hold true, however its next task is to act as the foundation for information on the PUBLIC site. As schedules, contact, times, locations change, they will be updated on the planning site through posts and the new SPARK pages. Then it will be uploaded to the PUBLIC site. This will alleviate constant changes to the PUBLIC site and hopefully lessen the confusion overall.

Please visit the schedule on the planning site and confirm info that pertains to your spark. This is hugely important! Greg is trying to get everything concrete by the end of next week so that he can begin developing marketing materials to go out advertising all the cool stuff each SPARK has in store! email Greg directly with updates.

Pam Hartley of Marbles Kids Museum came by and had some great ideas. One was to set up a free expression wall and or suggestion box of some sort that the public my use to offer their insight into the future of Moore Square. There has been some official speculation as to what could happen in Moore Square, and she felt that the public should be able to express their ideas too. What better place to do so than in Moore Square at a Creative/design festival? Anybody want to help out

Pam also spoke with Greg about setting up design challenges for kids in Marbles during SPARKcon. Her idea is to call upon NCSU Design grads to come and work with local children in a variety of design projects from architecture to ID and product design. This would be a welcome addition to the Kids Scavenger hunt that is in the works for YouthSPARK.

Thank you’s go out to everyone for their hard work, support, and good energy they keep bringing to the table!

First off, thank you to everyone who contributed to the First Friday efforts here at Designbox! I was really glad to come back and see how wonderfully it all came together.

For those of us who couldn’t make it last Friday, we will have another opportunity to see the show tomorrow night when we come to Designbox for our general meeting at 6pm!

We have been working to get the schedule nailed down and confirmed. Please visit the schedule on both the planning site here, and on the public site here. Review the content, description, times, and locations of events that pertain to your spark and ensure that they are correct. We will be going over this in the meeting.

If you are unable to make it, please send Greg revisions via email to greg@sparkcon.com
Look forward to seeing everyone there!

Designbox
323 W Martin St
Raleigh NC 27601