NACA. (Boston, MA)

We’re about to go grab lunch (Brian, Anton, Fred, and I), but I figured I’d post a quick update first. Maybe more info than you’re interested in, but I know some readers out there were wondering what, exactly, this convention is about.

We were up early and at the convention center at 8:30am to attend the first of our “block booking meetings”… and we learned plenty. These block booking meetings are intended for schools to get together and book an act as a collective (schools in the same geographical area), giving the act a nice routing/mini-tour of sorts, and in return, the act charges less per night per school. If an act books 3 shows in a 5 day run, or 5 shows in a 7 day run, all in one state or region, the per-event charge is lowered in return for getting a week’s worth of work without a ton of driving. Sounds great, so we got up early after a late night, and headed to the meetings. We split up, each of us heading to a different region’s meeting (Northeast, West, Central/South, etc.), and waited for our name to be called. They got to “S”… and then… no “SoundRabbit.” Hmm. After the meetings, we asked the organizers why our name wasn’t called, and evidently we were supposed to give out some “block booking forms” all day yesterday. Oops. They only call the names of acts who have forms submitted from interested schools… so, for example, if Boston College wants to book us and potentially go in on a ‘block’ with Boston University, Northeastern, and Wellesley College, they’ll fill out one of our forms and submit it to NACA, who then calls our name at the meeting the following morning, giving schools the opportunity to form a block and discuss the details amongst themselves and us. So… we could have stayed in bed this morning. Oh well. Today we’ll work on getting as many forms out as we can, and we’ll hit the next meeting in the morning and hopefully book some blocks. Okay, time to go grab some clam chowder. More later…