SparkCon Planning

In an effort to promote fashionSPARK, its designers, and SPARKcon in general, Allison Beale has reached out to local boutiques in the area to sponsor the event through window displays featuring works by this years designers. Here are the details for fashionSPARK windows, Sep 5-12:

Tough Love, 3114 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, 919.833.0073.
www.toughloveboutique.com
Featuring: Domino, The DRC Clothing Co.

Revolver, 124 Glenwood Ave. Raleigh, 919.834.3053
www.revolverconsignmentboutique.blogspot.com
Featuring: Revamp, FYSH, lllavender

Beanie + Cecil, 412 Daniels Street, Raleigh, 919.821.5455
www.beanieandcecil.com
Featuring: Marie Cordella, Justin D. LeBlanc

Fleur, 419 Daniels Street, Raleigh, 919.828.0602
www.fleur-boutique.com
Featuring: Stacie Horton, Susannah Cox

Don’t forget to come by Designbox on First Friday tomorrow and purchase your ticket to the fashion brunch this Sunday Sep 7, 12noon at Poole’s Diner.

Quick update to the lineup for LBLB at Tir na Nog Thursday Sep 18. I Was Toally Destorying It had to pull out this week, but Chris has got Strange Faces coming in their stead! Check them out on their myspace page.

Greg Behr and Billy Warden were able to secure a space for their provocative storySPARK after dark poetry reading. It will be held at Metro cafe in City Market on Saturday Sep. 20, 2008 at 10pm.

The call has gone out, and it will interesting to see what it brings.

Juan Matta of the Schizo and Chico Scott collaborated on the idea to host a breakdance competition at Riviera the Friday night of SPARKcon!! Apparently they are so keen on its success that they had an inaugural comp at Riviera on First Friday! Way to be thorough guys!

So many things to do that Friday night, it will hard to decide! Man I wish they had an ‘All-Pass’ for SPARKcon.
That would be great!

The call for storySPARK artists in up on both the planning site and the public site.

Check it out:
planning
public

Yesterday Greg met with Chris Malarkey of The Pour House and Chris Tamplin of Tir Na Nog to get up to speed with the music happenings of SPARKcon.

Tir Na Nog has already began booking local acts for the Thursday Local Beer Local Band night to kind of kick off the SPARKcon weekend. They are still planning on having some local live bluegrass on Friday and Paddy Gibney on Saturday.

The Pour House already has great line up for that weekend. Everything from local covers to hip-hop with a big local band showcase on Sunday night! Chris was very open to new ideas and offered his space during the day for possible film screenings, workshops, or gallery hangings!

Awesome support! A big thanks goes out to these guys for jumping in feet first early on and being involved members of the music community!

After a great meeting with the Raleigh Convention Center, we were able to once again gather their significant and generous support for the large screen, main stage, and lighting for SparkCon Sep 19-21. A logistical condition of this was to have all this equipment located in Moore Square.

This shifts our earlier focus from Fayetteville Street (so that we could better connect with BugFest), but given the RCC’s generous offer and the permitting issues of that street and its repeated closure the two prior weekends, it will probably be a more popular choice with the local businesses. We will try to have the Raleigh Rickshaws and other transportation solutions to connect us with Bugfest.

We realize yogaSPARK was very excited about using the Capitol grounds, but we plan to find an equally shaded and attractive location at Moore Square. Lea- please meet with Greg to find the best spot in Moore Square for your group. It will be nice to see this connect better with the meditation space at Longview.

GroundSPARK will maintain its location on Martin Street, and we will also be better positioned to have Marbles do some youthSPARK programming.

We will have Marbles to house the models and stylists for fashionSPARK which will be a nice logistical solution to maitain this year. Also we will have the courtyard at Marbles to use Friday night - possibly a nice location for Salsa dancing before the fashion show?  Allison - thoughts on how to do this without interfering with the fashion show prep?

Greg will soon update the SparkCon map to give clear indication on the when/where of each component.

Overall, we’re excited to have this donation come through from the RCC in a tough year, and we’ll be on what is now our home court advantage. We’ll begin to look at City Plaza and Fayetteville Street next year when its construction is complete.

Aly and I met with Jerome Davis, the creative director at Burning Coal Theatre yesterday to see if they would be interested in being involved with SPARKcon this year. 

First impressions were awesome! The space Burning Coal occupies is in the Murphey School Auditorium located in Downtown Raleigh at 224 Polk St. Louis Cherry of Cherry Huffman Architects was the creative force behind the design. The final product was beautiful. The use of space and attention to details is evident, and it would definitely enhance any theatre-goers experience.

After our brief tour we sat down with Jerome for a while. We learned about all the productions that are in the works, the camps and classes that they host, and their plans for the future of theatre in Raleigh. Jerome was very excited about the prospect of being able to showcase samples of their plays at SPARKcon this year. Their season re-opens a week prior to SPARKcon, so resources will need to be reworked, but he is ready to make it happen! We also discussed the option of linking the space itself to SPARKcon, and getting people to visit the theatre for their production of The Prisoner’s Dilemma. 

If you are interested in visiting Burning Coal, please check out their production Bowling with Blueberries running from June 27-29.

This web group seems to have quite a few people into alternative creative culture. This could be a source of new blood for your groups.

For instance:

Hoola Hooping (danceSPARK?)

Chapel Hill Yoga (yogaSPARK?)

People who love Bubbles(?)

Durham Writer’s Group (storySPARK?)

Just a Few Friends (bazaarSPARK?)

Raleigh Foodies(bazaarSPARK?)

Finally! After many drafts and red pen sessions the new sponsor pledge form is ready.

Please click on Documents located under the Organizer’s Corner on the left side of this page to download the pdf.

This is the general sponsor agreement for SPARKcon. 

Each spark my want to ’sweeten the deal’ for sponsors who are supporting just their spark by creating their own benefits package that would be attached to the general agreement and offer added incentive for giving us/you lots and lots of American dollars!

more to come…