photo credit: Alexander Grey

I know, I know — I left you hanging. What happened with “NYE Champagne Dreams”? It’s been twelve days since the party, already!

Well, firstly I want to make this disclaimer, because I’ve noticed the symptoms of writer’s block creeping up inside me: the writings in this blog are meant to be genuine, authentic, and raw. A stream-of-consciousness of sorts written in the language of my thoughts and feelings — not necessarily up to the standards of Grammarly’s corrections. Writing here is supposed to mirror the ease with which I handwrite in my personal journal. Yet, I found myself spending too much time editing these posts to polish the language as if it were going to be judged by some important, potential employer.

Look, if anyone who is considering me for hire comes across the entries here and decides to disqualify me because of the tone and style I’ve taken, then it will be their loss! It’s important for me to flow in order to maintain my consistency, so with that being stated, let me tell you what happened!!

Well, overall “NYE Champagne Dreams” was a success! I committed to taking on all the expenses, even as I spent way more than I had budgeted, to deliver the party at the highest standard and as close to my vision as possible. I stuck to my timeline and completed all the tasks pretty much according to schedule. I had been a little weary about the space owners since all of our transactions took place primarily through email and text messages. I mean I paid them $1200 to rent the second floor in their building without ever meeting them in person or speaking to them over the phone. I did receive a rental agreement and the energy of the digital exchanges felt trustworthy but I had some reservations about what would happen on the day of the party when we would meet face-to-face and I would be counting on them to be on time with opening the space up for me to load in and set-up. Turns out the lady who managed the building was very chill, patient and easy-going. She even provided access to a freight elevator I didn’t know existed and which turned out to be a huge game changer! The fact that we didn’t have to carry the tremendous amount of equipment and supplies up and down the stairs made things flow very smoothly.

The people I hired: the sound crew, the DJs, and even my small party crew that included my twelve-year-old, my fifteen-year-old son and his homeboy worked together to set-up the party with me. Even though we were a little behind schedule and were still hanging balloons as people started arriving, the guests gave lots of positive reviews. The sparkling wine was freely flowing and people seemed to really enjoy themselves. All the elements came together without drama or major hiccups. But there were some revelations that came from the whole process and my response to the results have led me to make some drastic directional changes.

Let’s first start with ticket sales. SMH — seriously, even as I think about what I’m about to write I am literally shaking my head. I was not happy at all with ticket sales. All that effort I spent crafting personal messages and DMing my followers on Instagram, all the promo codes I distributed, all the time I spent designing multiple digital ads, videos and reels and posting and asking for re-posts, all the hours I spent engaging people on Instagram…let me tell you I personally messaged over 245 people over the course of the promotions for the party, and had three other people actively working to sell tickets too. Guess how many tickets were sold based on the combined efforts of Instagram marketing? 23. Twenty-fuckin-three!! And most of the ones that people purchased were discounted tickets priced $55 less than the regular price of admission.

The rest of the ticket sales came from an ad campaign I ran on Eventbrite for the last eight days before the party. 48% of my sales came as a result of paid ads. I spent approximately $112 to make about $785 in sales via this tactic. Overall, I sold 40 tickets and netted $1655 in sales. I also made sales at the party from people who rented skates and paid at the door. A few folks were interested in buying new skates from me, and I had them on location, but because 3 teens from my party crew (I had my older son recruit his friends to work for me offering them $50 for a night of labor) canceled on the day of the party, I had no one to work the table for skate sales and missed the opportunity to receive those purchases. Ultimately, I took a loss of about $3K — and that hurt.

Still, receiving real data in real time really allowed me to question and evaluate my whole Instagram and social media presence entirely. Spoiler Alert: I’m currently on a three-month social media sabbatical which I started January 5th, and seeing how amazing life is going without it, I may never really return.

Here are my key observations, insights and feedback I received:

1. The people I offered $25 tickets (as opposed to the full price of $80): the ones who know me already, actively engage with and like my content and skate in the same local community as me — 40 of the 80-plus people I messaged, reposted the ad in their instastories but only 5 actually used the discount code to buy tickets. There were three main reasons people gave me for declining to attend: either they were to other parties, traveling or they were planning to stay inside with family and close friends. A few alluded to being short on money. About half of the people, whom I thought I had a great rapport with, didn’t even reply to my message. When I spoke with the party ambassadors also reaching out to sell tickets, I learned that lack of money was a big issue for many. With the holiday season’s expenses on top of life expenses multiplied by inflation, my target audience was kinda broke. And also torn between supporting other skate events hosted by various groups throughout the month of December.
2. Free tickets are good for ego-stroking but also reduce attendance. I offered free tickets to a small group of people I call skate leaders — fifteen people in total. They are folks like myself who have consistently taken initiative to create opportunities, parties and events for the local skate community. Sometimes there are tensions between us, as people have their cliques, not everyone likes each other, and some act like they are in competition with me. I wanted to make a graceful gesture to acknowledge them, thank them for their contributions to keeping our scene lively and offer them free entry to attend my party, a socio-political move so-to-speak. While almost every single person I messaged with this invitation DID reply to accept or decline, only one person actually showed up even though half said they’d attend “NYE Champagne Dreams”. Because they didn’t pay, they had zero loyalty to their word to actually come through.
   The free tickets that were important were the two freebies I gave to a young lady and her boyfriend. She is someone I know who works a low-paying job and has always been so sweet the few times we’ve hung out and skated together. She hit me up in response to a post I put on Instagram letting people know that I will work with their financial circumstances to find a way for them to attend if they really want to come. She took the initiative to contact me and so receiving free tickets meant something to her and they showed up.
3. The Eventbrite ad campaign was a worthwhile investment. I appreciated the daily analytics and the final campaign reports — seeing the reach of my ad steadily increase each day as full-priced tickets also began to sell. I saw how advertising directly to people who were actively seeking a New Year’s Eve party was more effective than placing it on Instagram, which is a ruthless, manipulative machine designed to dangle the prospect of being seen and heard by people who have opted-in to see your content, but actually limits your ability to reach them with the objective of forcing you to purchase ads or post incessantly throughout the day, EVERY DAY!
4. Confession: I tend to be overly optimistic. I hate to admit it and I don’t use that “h-word” too often. But it’s true. Dreaming big is part of what makes life exciting to me. Visualizing my fantasies in full detail and exploring the limits of what I would claim for myself leads me to paint bold colorful images in my mind, they seep into my subconscious and I begin to see signs popping up around me that I should seize the day and go for the impossible. It’s exhilarating honestly because despite the range of emotional reactions I will definitely have — I know something will happen as a result of me trying my very best to translate my visions into reality. The answer to my life-long question, “I wonder what will happen if I…” is the heart of my incessant curiosity and my proclivity to take to gamble on my ideas. I just wanna know if I’m right about what I can make possible when I press my will on the Universe.

Even when I’m wrong or reality doesn’t measure up to the fantasy, I still feel like a winner because I learn something unique and real that will help me significantly in the future and give me more confidence to keep going. I treat entrepreneurial ventures like research experiments, knowing I’m getting closer each time to reaching my goals and gaining clarity on where I need to fine-tune my approach. The thing is, in between my own efforts to go for the gold, I frequently receive offers that often deliver more than I was even looking for. I attract opportunities because I have demonstrable knowledge and expertise rooted in years of first-hand EXPERIENCE. There’s a premium on experience which cannot be bought or faked in this current time of rampant shallow information.

I knew I had allowed my imagination endless indulgence in envisioning this party. I took the concept of Champagne Dreams in a literal way. I must have been drunk to think that the magnitude of which I conceived of the party could manifest powered by magical thoughts alone. While the premise of the roller-skate dance party seemed simple: get a space, get some music, bring rental skates, provide a champagne toast, design a cool accent wall for selfies and don’t charge people to hang-up their coats (it’s just tacky).

However, as my need to design standout messages to excite people about my end-of-year event increased, competing with a mounting number of NYE party hosts all shouting digital ads at social media scrollers to have an expensive night with them, I elevated my promise that my party was going to be more than basic and worth people forking over almost $100 to do something they’d rather travel over an hour and a half to do for $18.

And in an attempt to drum up flights of fancy in my Instagram audiences’ minds — I sold scenes of beautiful soul-people from the coolest, creative crowds in NYC being there, shimmering, dressed to the nine, classy and chic. I was thinking that people would jump on a skate and dance party that was offering an upscale experience and a touch of luxury with complimentary bubbly and elegant snacks with tickets priced lower than what competitors providing less were charging. I dreamt up a delightful party that in reality, would require a whole freakin’ staff that should have secured before I began promoted it.

So this time around…being overly dreamy and optimistic — I fell short and it left me with some ego bruises. I grossly overestimated what it would take to sell 300 tickets in the fifteen days I had to plan, promote and deliver “NYE Champagne Dreams”. I had a rude awakening when I realized that preparing for an epic event like a New Year’s Eve party required two concurrent streams of tasks, which looking in hindsight, each needed at least one person’s full effort for the duration of the pre-party planning: on one hand, there was the ongoing direct outreach, developing ad campaigns, designing digital ads and copywriting messages, researching targets and managing online pre-party ticket sales that must be taking place simultaneously to establishing the theme’s color scheme and decor style, managing venue confirmation, sourcing and purchasing supplies, configuring party elements, hiring people and teams, and packing and loading items from storage into vehicles. I did all of this as one person and it was A LOT!

I underestimated the time each aspect needed, and how many people I should have had in place and I did not allocate enough time for set-up.

I thought reserving four hours for set-up on the day of the party would be more than adequate. I even told the DJs and sound crews we’d be all good to set-up in three hours with one hour before the party to get ourselves dressed and pretty…boy, was that an understatement.

On December 31st at 5pm, set-up really meant: physically unloading trucks and vans full of equipment, bags, and boxes inside the venue then unpacking and sorting all the supplies, then figuring out which adhesives and materials will work given the condition and quality of the walls, floors and ceilings, setting up all wall decor, using multiple ladders to hang backdrops and unpacking and prepping for the food table, getting sparkling wine on ice and glasses set up, placing soap, paper towels and a garbage can in the bathroom, assembling coat racks, unpacking hangers prepping coat check tickets for the coat check, unpacking and setting up rental skates and making easy access for guests to pay digitally, wiring and staging floor lighting and projector lighting, positioning the security station, arranging benches and a seating area, setting up ticket check-in and waiver e-form, creating the skate boutique and merch for sale, and troubleshooting with the sound crew and DJs.

Still while my grandiose intentions did not completely play out, I was thoroughly prepared with a MVP-version (minimal viable product) of each element and simplified the set-up to ensure the most important aspects were sufficiently in place, while easily delegating tasks to the sound crew and DJs who offered to pitch in to help once they had finish getting themselves all set.

Like I said, the guests were definitely impressed because only I know what else was missing. And in the future I see how to better execute the vision and wow people even more.

5. Child labor is good labor! I knew my vision was bigger than my own body’s capacity to deliver it. I knew I needed a crew to help me. (I learned later that I really NEEDED A PRE-HIRED RELIABLE CREW to help me) From the outset, my tiered approach to go about recruiting a team to work with me was: first I was going to see if I could gather some volunteers, then I was gonna offer to pay for help, and as a last resolution I was going to rely on my teen and tween sons to be my workers.

See, on December 12th, when I initially posted to my timeline a short video of the raw rental space and a casual announcement that I had booked it and would be hosting a New Year’s Eve skate party, the response to that Instagram post was overwhelming — it received the more likes, views and comments than several of my previous posts and I took the reaction to the news as an indicator that people were really excited and interested in attending.

I thought my closest IG buddies and stans would be juiced to help me roll-out this party because they were the ones that left impassioned, emoji-filled congrats. The enthusiasm felt real.

However when I reached out via DM —
(SIDEBAR: because, yeah up until seven days ago, I have defaulted to Instagram to be the place where I’d maintain most of my social communications and contacts. I would constantly have multiple surface conversations going on in group chats and direct messages. Turns out these exchanges were really illusions of interaction because this party confirmed a pattern I was noticing — fewer and fewer of the people I most chatted with and engaged with online were committing less and less to showing up and hanging out in person, at least with me.

Yet because I remained active on the platform and generously kept everyone updated with constant creative content of photos, vids and instastories — sharing up-close and personal ongoings of my exceptional life, I didn’t realize that all I was doing was satisfying the voyeuristic lust of a handful of people willing to digitally love-bomb me with inflated comments, giving me the false perception that they were the “real ones” because they were the vocal ones.

Now I see that giving unearned and unlimited availability to me via my feed has come to replace any real desire and motivation to actually show up for me in person. The number of people tuning in to my posts and stories continues to grow but the connections are weak. Yet I’d been still operating under the belief that the more I could make myself be consistent in showcasing a few elements of my life’s journey in a relatable way and on a daily basis — despite the burden as it was becoming, the more those online bonds would translate into the real world — because at one point I feel like they did.

I definitely used to post freshly-painted artwork, offer it for sale with a simple IG photo post (not reel), and sell the work within hours via someone asking to buy it in my DMs. I used to meet people in real-life, have them follow me online, then witness them show up at my next event, which they would see on my IG page, whether I directly messaged them or not.

Instagram as a platform has morphed into something less friendly. My audience’s behavior has declined in the last three years and my ability to spark action has diminished drastically over the ten years I have been a steady creator and contributor. At the time of my sabbatical, it felt like my content received likes and comments more as entertaining fodder for passive fans to mindlessly chew on in moments of boredom and escapism than a measure of loyal supports of my creativity.)

Okay so before the above realization, I messaged a few of my closest skate-friends to ask them if they could be on my party crew and volunteer to help me set-up the party — but it was the weirdest thing, everyone echoed a tame version of their initial congrats but had shallow excuses and lack-luster support as to why they couldn’t EXACTLY commit to helping…but maybe. Cue eye-roll. I needed definite help.

When time ran out and I still had no real volunteers, I made the decision to employ my 12-year-old to manage skate rentals, and employed my 15-year-old and his one friend that kept his word and showed up to work, as the security and ticket check-in at the front door. And you know what? they were so happy to be getting paid, especially when I told them I was increasing their compensation to $125 each because they all did an exceptional job and I knew that if I had to hire adults to play their positions, I would have had to pay way more. Not only did the young men work the five hours of the party, they also set-up during the four hours before the party and helped pack and load out all the stuff after. I got twelve hours of labor out of my own kids and their friend, who in turn got paid the most money in one day of their lives. And I’m sure word will get around to the teens that flaked on me about how generously I compensate, and more of my son’s friends will show up to work next time.

One thing about me is I have a very strong credo for paying people well. It goes, “I eat, you eat”. Paying people who demonstrate themselves to be quality workers at the high end of the spectrum boosts morale, increases loyalty, and increases the likelihood that the person will go above and beyond next time. On a personal level, as a person who has been underpaid, I believe it is important to show others their worth by compensating them on the highest level, not the lowest because it's cheaper to me as an employer and I know they’d accept less. I before telling each boy about the raise I was giving him, I asked them what they thought their labor was worth. All of them hesitated to spit out the actual dollar amount they believed they earned. My younger son said $80 based on how much he saw come in from skate rentals. My older son’s teen friend coyly mumbled $75 when I asked him. And I watched him squirm with discomfort at forcing him to name his price. My older son who knows I my commitment to paying top-dollar quickly threw out $120 but immediately began a rant after naming his price about how he did the work of five people, which swiftly undermined his response. They were all psyched when I paid them before the party even ended $125. It made it easier to get the last bit of energy and focus I needed from them to pack up and clear out the rental space.

And you know it felt really good for me too. I want the people I choose to employ to proceed after working with me with the courage to demand higher wages and do so confidently because someone already validated that their labor is worth it, that somebody being me.

So there came a point about five days before the party, that I knew I was not going to sell enough tickets to break even. To shake my disappointment, I decided to mentally reframe the purpose of this party to be a marketing and awareness making-event versus a money-making event. It could be worth it as a form of paid promotion if I had media people in the building who would write about it, potentially reaching more readers than I could possibly have as attendees.

Way late in the game, I started researching and scoping profiles on LinkedIn, sharing the digital flyer on my own sporadically used profile, and posting it in one of my alumni groups. Then I went about compiling a list of entertainment and culture writers I planned to contact and invite directly. Here’s where I hit some snags: LinkedIn is designed to encourage people to post key details about their profession — the facts that recruiters, scouters and opportunity-hunters rely upon in their searches. But even as the platform makes it free to house career biographies, they charge inquirers and conceal info from you unless you are directly connected or unless you pay about $75 a month for access. LinkedIn curtailed my profile searches at 15.

Gaining contact info for people to whom I had no ties on the professional social media platform was tough. Despite the profiles I did access, I found myself digging like an investigator just to acquire email addresses, cross referencing on multiple sites — and the process to build a short-list of 14 media prospects took over five hours! I could see it wasn’t gonna be worth the effort with New Year’s Eve just days away. Still after doing all that work, I did send cold-call invites offering free VIP tickets (an $80 value!) to the small media list — and one person actually replied letting me know he couldn’t make this one but to please invite him next time. Okay, that was something! And I figured if I had put this plan in place much earlier, I could have had more time to research and would have succeeded in attracting the press.

Another tactic I tried with poor results with was cold-messaging from UME’s account instead of my personal account on Instagram by reaching out to people who followed the accounts of large event and party producers, and offering free tickets for a limited time to people who lived in NYC and fit into the qualification of “beautiful soul-people”.

The problem I discovered was that more people than ever have private accounts, lack images of themselves on their profile pages, and don’t use the caption too list where they live or what they are about. It was hard to decipher how beautiful of a soul a person actually was just from their fingernail size profile pic. Of the 145 people I messaged, I don’t think any came to the party, although quite a few began following my company’s IG account in return. Small gains, nonetheless.

To test the notion of a one-day flash sale, I sent a newsletter to over 400 subscribers offering a discount code to access $60 tickets ($20 savings) for only 24-hour before the offer would expire. Not a single person used the code. I surmise that the discount offer was not attractive enough.

Again, data has revealed that my current audience expects cheap, fast and easy AND superior service, high quality presentation, tailoring, catering and customization that is also on-demand. They want to pay $15 or less and they want a spectacular event. It doesn’t align. The audience I have access to now is not the audience that values what I’m offering. I will need to find a new audience and use other mechanisms to reach them that are not reliant on social media platforms.

And so now, you must see how the results of “NYE Champagne Dreams” and the lessons I learned have led me to chose to take a social media sabbatical. But what I haven’t told you is the drastically new direction I’m taking. And that will have to wait until a future post. I mean, isn’t this makeup narrative already long enough?

Well, talk to you soon!

Peace,

~SuperGoode