[Dixielandjazz] Oh Yeah Day in Hungary

[Ittzés Tamás]

Dear listmates,

I just came back from our first Oh Yeah Day concert that was held in my
hometown, Kecskemet, Hungary on the main square. We celebrated Louis
Armstrong's 110th birth anniversary with a good crowd and they did
participate in the common singing of "Oh Yeah" at the end of When It Sleepy
Time Down South. We had a banner on stage plus a roll-up banner in front
with the logo of Oh Yeah Day and played for about 90 minutes. The programme
included songs composed or often played by Louis such as Cornet Chop Suey,
Sister Kate, Mahogany Hall Stomp, I'm Not Rough, Big Butter and Egg Man,
Sugar, When You're Smiling, Some of These Days, I'm Confessin', Tiger Rag,
Royal Garden Blues, Indiana etc. People enjoyed it and I put out my laptop
so they could sign up for Oh Yeah Day at the website right on the spot, too.

One more thing that we normally do and I wholeheartedly suggest everyone to
do the same or something similar. The idea generates LOTS of addresses for
us at every concert and that list can be very useful later when we want to
reach our possible future audience as there are always many people
(especially at open air concerts) who like the music but would never come
back later unless they hear us again occasionally. I have printed out a few
thousand copies of an information card which people can easily tear in two
parts: one half is about our band and the other half is a questionnaire. We
hand these out to everyone in the audience (unless they refuse to take it)
and announce that if they fill it in and put it into our Bohem hat placed on
the front of the stage we have a draw during the concert. We normally have
two draws, depending on the number of filled-in questionnaires. We draw one
name out of the hat and the lucky winner gets a bottle of Bohem wine (our
25th anniversary wine) or a Bohem T-shirt or our 25th anniversary concert on
DVD. We pick the gift, one or two at a concert out of the above
possibilities. It works. Normally we can get 40-60 people to give out their
addresses this way but if we just ask them to sign up for our newsletter
etc. after the concert, there would be 2-3 or none. Since reaching the
audience and doing direct marketing to them is one of the biggest problem of
any performing artists or organizers, I think, this is a great and very
cheap way to build a huge mailing list. And, of course, through the
questionnaire we have a more clear picture of what kind of people we play
to. Sometimes you might think, you know YOUR audience but if you have clever
questions to ask, you would be surprised to see the answers or statistics.

Of course, the above method works best if we play out of our hometown or
regular places, today we had a lot of people filling the questionnaires but
away from home it is a great tool. Highly recommended, especially at open
air concerts as there are MANY people out there who just come by and love
the music but they could not be considered as jazz fans and otherwise would
not dare to come to a concert. But if you keep informing them, especially in
a nice and humorous way... I'd be interested to know what you think of this
idea and how it would work in your country (we just started to do this 2
months ago, and so far it works perfectly).

Back to Oh Yeah Day: I hope that there were/are/will be other venues not
only those that I have listed on the www.OhYeahDay.com website. If you
haven't supported the idea yet, please, fill in the short form on the
website and help to make this dream come true. Maybe my dream but not for
myself but for the future of OKOM in the first place. I really think it
would be great to have an officially declared World Day for Classic Jazz -
but we need supporters, MANY, MANY, MANY (and not money, money, money).
Please join! Thanks,

Tamas

PS.: There will be a 3-day dixieland festival in Hajduszoboszlo, Hungary at
this weekend and it will also be part of the Oh Yeah Day activity. We play
there, too, on Friday.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
ITTZÉS Tamás
violin teacher, ragtime pianist, festival director
www.bohemragtime.com
www.OhYeahDay.com
Address: H-6001 Kecskemét, Pf. 652., Hungary
Phone (classical): +36(20)82-447-82 
Phone (jazz): +36(20)960-7169
E-mail (classical): ittzes.tamas at gmail.com
E-mail (jazz): info at bohemragtime.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
Join us and make Aug 4 the International Day of Classic Jazz!
Be part of a great worldwide event!
Support at www.OhYeahDay.com