What do YOU want from an OOB Panel?

[arthursimone]

Panel: Should you move to Austin?

I don't know if you all heard this, but DSI people went so far as to include a brochure titled "you should move here" in with every festival packet. It included anecdotes as well as basic stats comparing rent, job average, training center costs to Chicago, LA, NYC. I think we might have a copy somewhere.

[Asaf]

Okay, so I feel out of the loop here. I assume these panels would happen as part of the actual festival. So here are my two questions:

1) Who would this panel be for? Festival attendees, Austin improvisers, or the general Austin public?

2) What is the primary goal of this panel? To help build community within Austin, between Austin and other cities, to help address an issue, to give Austin improvisers a new set of tools or useful info?

One thing that I want to say from experience of having been to a lot of festivals (12 last year). Panel attendance tends to be very very very low. So the better a sense that you have of what you want to accomplish, as opposed to just picking a hot topic, the better the panel with succeed.

[shando]

Okay, so I feel out of the loop here. I assume these panels would happen as part of the actual festival. So here are my two questions:

This is the 'loop.' We're asking what people would be interested in seeing, however that might be defined. Your points are addressing that. Thank you.

[beardedlamb]

well, 15 people is hardly a representative sample. but we'll certainly take this into account. if you haven't voted and give a hoot about this, please let us know.

thanks,
beard

[shando]

Let me follow up Jeremy by describing some of what we're expecting the panel to accomplish--some of the issues that Asaf raised that weren't transparent when we brought this up.

This panel is really for you guys, in that Austin improvisers make up the core of the participants of the extracurriucular activities that go on at OoB, and we expect that this will be the case for this, our first panel, as well. So we're interested in knowing what aspects of improv you'd like to talk about and hear about. We'd like this panel, though, to not preclude the attendance of improvisers from out of town, nor do we want it to be incomprehensible should an audience person stumble into it by mistake or out of curiosity, in that order. We've figured that we'd like half of the panelists would be local, half from elsewhere so that we can get perspectives from both inside our community and from abroad to whatever issue(s) we tackle. Note this probably rules out the "Move to Austin" panel (although the brochure is still a good idea). We also don't anticipate inviting anyone to come to Austin solely to participate in the panel, so there are some external limits (for instance, if not a single troupe with a meber of an ethnic minority applies, Arthur will be happy with certain decisions being made for us in advance).

Thanks, and hit us up here or elsewhere if you have other thoughts.

[HerrHerr]

What day/time would be the best slot for this panel and how long would the panel run?

[beardedlamb]

we're thinking saturday after class from 5 to maybe 6:15.
we know lots of discussion about improv happens over the week, but we'd like to formalize it a bit and dig deep into some of our wiser minds en masse.

[annwilson]

I'm a little late on the uptake here but I think the main focus should be on the best way to ensure a large audience (return audiences as well as new faces).

[Asaf]

Keep in mind that Saturday afternoon is tough. People were probably partying the night before and doing classes all day and some may have a show that night, definitely shows that they want to see. People tend to use that window to decompress from all the activity and lack of sleep that has accumulated.

It might be easier to include it on the golf day.

[shando]

Last year was the first time we did golf on a Sunday, and by all impressions, people were even more exhausted from partying by Sunday than they were on Saturday. A certain well-known improv impressario soundly slumbering on the Hideout's couches while waiting to catch a ride to golf I will submit as Exhibit A for this argument. So my guess is that a Sunday post-golf or (good Gawd) pre-golf panel seems dicey as well.

But yes, that brief little window between the end of classes and the start of shows is problematic. Which, Jeremy, gives me an idea. You should PM me about it.

[beardedlamb]

i refuse.

[kaci_beeler]

WORST GOLFER IN THE HOUSE!

[beardedlamb]

last chance for people to sound off about this. i'm in the planning phase for this panel but i want to make sure people are turned on by it so we don't waste our energy.

It's going to be 5:15 to 6:15, Saturday at The Hideout.