ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER JUNE 1989
 
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^ ORGANIZING A T.I. FAIRE  
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Charles Good 
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Lima Ohio User Group 
      
     At our recent Multi User Group Conference officers of
at least two visiting user groups expressed an interest in
organizing their own TI faires.  "If the tiny Lima Group can
do this, we probably can too," was one of the comments I
heard.  I was asked by one visiting user group officer to
put down in writing some of the things the Lima User Group
has learned by experience about how to organize and run a
faire.  That request is the basis of this article. 
      
     One element of the Lima Multi User Group Conferences
of 1988 and 1989 was minimum cost to all attending, and no
financial commitment on the part of the Lima User Group.  We
were unwilling to risk any of the money in our very small
treasury.  To make such a faire work you need a FREE PLACE
to hold the faire.  As a campus organization, we were able
to use the Ohio State University Lima Camous at no charge.
Other possibilities include public schools, churches, and
union halls.  Many user groups have members who could
probably arrange for such a FREE PLACE, for example at a
member's church.  The free place needs to have SPACE, a
supply of TABLES AND CHAIRS, and ELECTRICITY.  Our only
expenses were postage and long distance telephone calls.
These were paid for by individual Lima UG members and by
monitary donations from some of the attending user groups
and individuals.   
      
     Another key element of the Lima Conferences was
simplicity.  "Keep it simple, stupid (KISS)!"  Many groups
complain in their newsletters about members who don't do
much for the group.  We too have a limited number of really
dependable members, so we designed our Conference to require
minimum manpower on our part.  Our 1989 conference was more
or less totally run by about 8 people.  If we had chosen not
to video tape everything and not to make copies of our
library disks for other attending groups, and not to
register attendees and hand out name tags, we could have
done it ALL with just 3 people.  Another aspect of KISS was
our lack of organizing committees.  Responsibilities were
assigned to specific individual volunteers by the Conference
coordinator.  Individuals can get things done that a group
of people would find harder to do.  For example, one person
personally handled of all our non-newsletter publicity.  We
DID NOT SELL TICKETS (no ticket sellers or ticket takers
required).  We DID NOT OFFER TO PROVIDE SECURITY (no
security partols by our members required).  Every attending
user group and dealer was responsible for keeping track of
their own stuff.  We DID NOT HAVE FORMAL SCHEDULED
PERIPHERAL ACTIVITIES, such as an "evening before the show
party", a "during the show wife's shopping tour", or an
"after the show catered dinner." All of these would have
required lots of organization, manpower, and probably
financial committment.  Instead, we had available from the
Lima Chamber of Commerce (at no cost to us) lots of
literature on what to do and where to go in Lima on that
particular weekend.  Our after show party was a "dutch treat
pizza party" at a local pizza joint.  This party required
absolutely no organization or planning on our part.  Those
of us who attended ate pizza, drank Pepsi, and talked for 2
1/2 hours.  It was great fun!  
      
     Step 1- Arrange a firm commitment, specific date, time,
and place for the faire.  This should probably done about 6
MONTHS IN ADVANCE to allow plenty of time for planning and
publicity. 
      
     Step 2- Almost immediately after a date and place are
set, WRITE MICROPENDIUM with all available details.  You
will then be listed each month in their TI Faires listing. 
      
     Step 3- Start working on getting the dealers and
"important people" to agree to come to your show.  This will
be a long process with lots of letter writing and telephone
calls.  Personal contacts that may already exist between
members of your group and the dealers and "important people"
can be very important here.  To successfully attract dealers
and "important people" it is very important to make it AS
EASY AND INEXPENSIVE AS POSSIBLE FOR THESE GUESTS TO BE AT
YOUR SHOW.  Ways to do this include: 
     A- Provide exhibit space at no charge.  If possible,
offer to provide as many tables as the dealer wants. 
     B- If the dealer or "important person" is coming a long
distance (more than a one day round trip by car), offer to
provide free room and board at the home of a group officer. 
     C- Offer to provide, at no charge, a computer system
for use by the dealer or "important person" at the show. 
     D- Let it be known that your group will arrange pick up
and delivery for those arriving by bus, train, and plane. 
      
     Step 4- Other publicity:  
     Publish details in your newsletter month by month as
soon as these details become available.  You can trace the
buildup of our Conferences by following the "Multi User
Group Conference Update" articles in our past newsletters.
As the list of groups that have "signed up" increases, this
encourages other groups to "sign up" and additional
individuals to consider attending. 
     Jim Peterson has an up to date list of active user
groups.  We used this list to write to selected nearby
groups to invite them to our conference. 
     Put notices of your faire on as many bulletin boards
and information services as you can.  Ask, in your
newsletter, for other individuals and user groups to do this
on your behalf.  Our Conferences were well publicized on
various BBS systems, and we didn't have to post any of these
notices ourselves. 
     A month to two weeks before the faire print some signs
listing those groups and dealers who are attending.  Display
these at supermarkets, school and church bulletin boards,
etc.  Printing can be done for free if your group has
members with access to xerox machines at their places of
employment.  Xeroxing a few copies of the sign will not be
noticed by most employers. 
     Prepare a press release and deliver it to all the local
media (radio, TV, newspapers) TWO WEEKS before faire time.
Any earlier runs the risk that your release will get lost in
a stack of paper.  Anything less than two weeks will not
meet the required deadline for some of the media.  Our
experience with the media is mixed.  The local newspaper has
completely ignored us both years.  Local radio and TV
stations have, however, sent reporters to cover our 1988 and
1989 Conferences. 
      
     Step 5- Organize formal presentations. 
     Our 1989 conference had almost 11 hours of seminars
and presentations, probably more than any other TI faire in
the country.  We feel that such presentations are a VERY
IMPORTANT PART OF THE SHOW and encourage ANYONE who thinks
they have ANYTHING TO SAY to schedule a formal presentation
at our conferences.   This is a great chance for unknowns as
well as "important people" to become famous as they show off
programming techniques or new software and hardware. 
     You need a special room with seats, a blackboard, and a
TI system with a BIG SCREEN monitor or TV for formal
presentations.  We found that 1 hour time blocks were best
for these presentations.  This gives people time to get in
and out of the room between presentations, and speakers time
to set up and take down any special equipment.  Find out in
advance what special equipment is needed by each speaker
(two drives, double density controller, Epson compatible
printer, VCR player, etc) and try and provide what is
requested.  Make sure that EACH SPEAKER KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT
EQUIPMENT WILL BE AVAILABLE IN THE SEMINAR ROOM. 
      
     Step 6- Video tape special considerations. 
     If you are going to videotape part of your faire and
make the tape available to the TI community in general,
there are a number of things to consider and plan in
advance.  This aspect of our conferences consumed much of
our limited manpower.  You may decide that video taping
isn't worth the extra time and effort.  I understand, for
example, that the Chicago UG no longer offers to the TI
community videos of the seminars at the Chicago Faire. 
     You need a video camera, tripod, and members
experienced in the operation of the camera.  We learned the
hard way that you can't just set the camera up in the back
of the room, aim it to show the speaker and the monitor
beside the speaker at the same time, and let the camera
grind away by itself.  YOU CANNOT SEE THE SPEAKER AND THE TV
SCREEN AT THE SAME TIME with most video cameras.  The TV is
much brighter than the rest of the scene, which includes the
speaker, and most video cameras cannot compensate for this
bright area in the field of view.  TO SEE WHAT IS ON THE
MONITOR YOU NEED TO ZOOM IN WITH THE CAMERA AND FILL THE
FIELD OF VIEW WITH THE MONITOR SCREEN. 
     Have enough video tapes immediately available for all
the required tape time.  Most video cameras will not record
at slow tape speed.  You get two hours per tape with most
cameras. 
     How are you going to make copies of your master tapes?
To copy a video tape at home requires the use of two VCR
units, preferably with four play/record heads.  At slow
speed there is a real visible difference between tape copies
made with a 2 head VCR (the ones that cost $200-$250) and
copies made with a 4 head VCR.   If you have 6 hours of
presentations (one tape recorded at slow speed), it will
require the full and complete use of TWO VCRS FOR 6 HOURS TO
MAKE EACH COPY.  To make one copy of the two tape masters
from our 1989 conference requires 11 hours.  Are you going
to make lots of copies to distribute to the TI community?
Can your wife and kids get along without VCRs for this
length of time?  Do you value you marriage more than your TI
computer? 
     Video tapes in their cardboard boxes can be sent 4th
class book rate for $0.90 in the USA as long as there are no
personal messages enclosed. 
     Some cheap video tapes ($3 each or less) will not
record reliably at slow speed.  UNIVERSAL SHG brand tapes
are unreliable at slow speed.  Cheap tapes that, in my
experince, record OK at slow speed include FOCAL (K-Mart
house brand) and WALMART house brand video tapes.   
      
     Step 8- Motels. 
     Contact nearby motels two months in advance for room
rates and possible discounts.  It is neither desirable nor
necessary to "book a block of rooms" in order to obtain a
discount for faire guests.  Many motels will offer discounts
without any financial commitment on the part of your user
group in exchange for your giving them some extra business.
Publish complete motel information in your newsletter well
before the faire.  Have faire attendees contact the motels
directly for reservations.  To obtain the discount, faire
attendees must usually state at the time they make the motel
reservation that they are attending your faire. 
      
     Step 9- Food service during the faire. 
     The easiest thing to do is have maps posted showing the
locations of nearby fast food restaruants.  If you want to
arrange on site food service that is even better.  However,
if you are not selling tickets you have no reliable way of
estimating faire attendance in advance.  You should not
offer to guarantee a specific attendance at your faire or to
make any financial commitment to the food service people.
What you can do, and what we did, is to present the
potential on site food service people with a list of user
groups, dealers, and seminar speakers who have definately
signed up to attend your faire.  We used such a long
impressive looking list to convince the Lima Campus food
service to open especially for our faire with no real
guarantee of fair attendance or food service profits. 
      
     Step 10- Local information for out of town guests.
Visit the local chamber of commerce, tell them what you are
doing and ask what sort of FREE LITERATURE they have for you
to hand out at the faire to out of town guests.  You should
be able to get free maps of the city as well as lists of
restaurants and motels, sights to see, and community
activties on the weekend of your faire.  After the faire is
over, give the undistributed literature back to the chamber
of commerce. 
      
     Step 10- Last minute considerations. 
     Make lots of signs to post around the faire area.
Identify each exhibit room table with a sign on the table
and one on the wall behind the table.  Have seminar
sechedules posted in many places.  Signs in the main exhibit
area that tell how to get to other important places (seminar
rooms, toilets) are also useful.  We made our signs with
Certificate 99.  Many who attended our conferences told us
what a nice touch the signs were. 
     Have LOTS OF EXTENSION CORDS AND PLUG BOXES available.
We had lots, and we used nearly all of them.  Extension
cords should be the heavy duty outdoor type in 25, 50, and
10 foot lengths.  Many of the groups that showed up borrowed
one of our extension cords at the last minute.  Each user
group or dealer that has tables in the exhibit room will
need at least one electral outlet.  If you can, run some
extension cords into the exhibit room from other parts of
the building that are on different circuits.   
     A PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEM is useful.  If your exhibit
room doesn't have a PA system you can use a good stereo
system with a microphone.  Most groups have a member who
can provide such a stereo system. 
     Setup the night before the faire.  Get all your members
out for a setup party.  Have a plan, which tables go where,
but be ready to modify the plan to provide more or fewer
tables at the last moment as circumstances require.  Setup
systems in the seminar rooms and MAKE SURE ALL THE SEMINAR
EQUIPMENT IS OPERATING PROPERLY.  Have a special table for
the Local Information literature. 
     Obtain consecutively numbered door prize tickets in
advance.  If you don't have a source of tickets it is
easy to write a small BASIC program to print such tickets.
Ask dealers, as they arrive at the faire, to donate door
prizes.  Most will do so, some won't. 
      
     Step 11- Clean up! 
     The exhibit space should be left spotless.  If you
leave any mess at all you may not be able to use the FREE
SPACE again.  Put everything back exactly the way it was
before you started setting up.  Collect all the garbage from
the floor and all the waste baskets and either empty the
garbage into the appropriate outside dumpster or take the
garbage away with you when you finally leave.  Use dust mops
on the floor and wet mops if there are any food spills.
Be prepared to PROVIDE YOUR OWN BROOMS AND MOPS if these are
not available at the faire location. 
      
     Step 12- Relax and enjoy all of your new TI goodies. 
     .PL 1