Range with the partner.

But that's been a topic that has come up in conversation in the city again and with other external partners.

So I just wanted to make sure that you were aware of the fireworks are still happening, still happening in Soldiers Field, still at 10 o'clock.

We will be amplifying that message so that folks in the community know, but we are not going to be on site.

We are not having any bans or any in-part activity.

Another change we have is we've had some staffing changes.

So we, as you know, we are the three uh staff members that are full-time with music.

In the summer, we have a part-time production assistant.

And that is a position that Paul and I will hopefully be hiring next week or in the next two weeks.

We have interviews this week and the next for that position.

That's a summer position.

That is a person who comes to us in the summer and helps Paul basically with all of the hands-on things that he needs assistance with with getting things up and running in the parks.

This person also kind of is a floater.

They're not working on things for setup or teardown.

They also do things like sometimes they do crowd counting, sometimes they do surveys, sometimes they're at the uh tent with us doing kind of um community outreach, customer service stuff.

And so you may have met um, we had Jason Miller Dunbar with us the last couple of years.

He is no longer able to take on that role.

And so we're hiring someone new.

So that position is hopefully gonna be filled soon.

Then we um we also have a summer intern who will be joining us.

We have hired that position as well.

And so she will be starting as my Gina.

She'll be starting in April, April 20th, you said.

And so fortunate to have her last year was our second year having a summer intern.

Um, and really a very critical piece for us.

They they help with a lot of the operations work with Mary.

Um, and then we take full advantage of whatever skills they come to us with, which um because these seem to be folks who are college age, tend to be very fluent in things like um media, yeah, sometimes video, sometimes photography, sometimes graphic design, sometimes social media.

So all the things that we really could use help with.

Um, so that we're excited about her coming to join us.

Um is that a good position?

Yes.

Okay.

Interesting.

Yep.

Um, the other, so we did have also a role with us that was a um, we call it a limited term appointment.

So with their 14-hour week positions.

And so we had a staffer, uh, Rosie Skipper, who was with us doing social media.

Um, due to kind of marketing priority shifting with the department and uh limited resources.

We kind of redesigned that role.

And so that position is going to be a marketing manager position that we have posted and will be um conducting some interviews for soon.

So basically, that is um we're looking for a 14-hour week position as a kind of a consistent across the year, years.

It's it's there isn't an end date.

Um, and that person would, if you're familiar with a marketing manager position, they basically are kind of a project manager operations person for marketing.

So we don't have an embedded marketing staff member.

So we work with uh various folks to get our marketing stuff done.

Uh the comms department in in the city does graphic design.

We sometimes have external contractors, we work with sponsors, we do a bunch of different people are involved, obviously all the bands.

Um, so it gets to be a lot of cats to wrangle, and it's it's pretty difficult for um, it's typically me and Mary who are trying in vain to uh to get that across the finish line.

So this role uh will be doing that work, basically kind of holding all the thread and making sure the people who need the information are getting it and that we're coordinating, people are getting the bits and pieces they need so that we can successfully do our marketing campaigns.

Just clarifying, you said it's a 14-hour week position.

Yes.

So it is it is a it's obviously tag teaming with Mary.

So they're not doing all of the um there's going to be stuff that stays with Mary, stuff that stays with me.

So stuff like marketing plans, things like that would be with me, um, things like ordering um banners and all the materials and working with all the vendors to get all that stuff done.

That'll be Mary.

But um the marketing manager, for instance, would be going to our media sponsors and saying, Hey, you know, you're a media sponsor, we're gonna need your banners by X date.

Um, you know, make sure you send us your up-to-date logos.

We need it by this date to put in this advertisement, that kind of a thing.

Um, doing a lot of that following up and relationship building that is just really critical, but hasn't lived consistently with one person um since our department uh our marketing position in our department was was reallocated um internally.

So that is kind of those are the big changes that have happened and are happening.

Um, and the marketing manager is a bit of a pilot, right?

So we're gonna see how that goes.

That's trying to respond to um what we have identified as needs in the department over the last couple of seasons.

Um it's changed a lot because the way we've approached marketing has changed a lot.

So we had an embedded staff member, then we didn't have an embedded staff member, then we use contractors for various things, then we moved stuff to internal departments.

Um we really haven't had a year of consistent um marketing, staffing, planning under our belts.

We're still experimenting a bit.

So uh hopefully this will be really helpful and we'll go from there.

But that's that's the a big change coming for us.

Um other than that, we are keeping on keeping on.

I'm assuming that uh Tyler and Kate will still be doing the photography and the videography for all of the events.

Yep.

So uh, and they are there um so Tyler is yep, he works for um technically the city.

He's a staffer.

Yep.

He's a 14 hour.

He's a 14 hour week like like this marketing manager position.

So yes, he will be uh videoing the performances.

Kate Closs will be doing our photography.

Um, and then we also are hiring an additional uh contractor.

Yeah, so Oliver Books will be joining us.

I've is it just former?

Uh yeah.

Yep.

Uh forward to be a secondary camera.

Yep.

Yeah.

So he's gonna jump on stage and the bonus.

Oliver.

Um, but yeah, so that's that's kind of the the highlights.

Um, you know, administratively.

Oh, yes, excuse me.

So we um because I I still have to get her contract to her.

We have also hired uh Neon Green studios, so that's uh run by Nora Anderson to do our art stop activation at forward.

So previously um it had been it last year's pilot program.

The mayor was directly contracting with artists to provide that activation.

This year we'll be contracting with Neon Green.

Um and so Nora will be uh basically booking the artists, and um, she knows kind of we're we're kind of co-designing what we want that um activity to look like.

So we're really excited to work with her on that.

We think that's gonna be amazing.

Um I think there was something else I was going to say that we were piloting.

Oh, we are um work is underway with our new app.

So we are we are getting to work on that.

So that was uh approved.

It's gone through the approval processes um to meet the uh EOJ standards for accessibility that now all um government entities need to um meet.

So we're in a good place there.

So we're getting working on that.

You may have noticed, maybe not, hopefully not, that our website has not been updated in a while.

And that is because we are transitioning to our new um our new website that meets the new standards as of April 8th.

And so Citywide, citywide, citywide.

And so we have not put a lot of like recent information, things like the forward dates aren't up on there, just because that's gonna be duplicated effort once the new page and the new site launches.

Um, so we're in a bit of a holding pattern there, but early April is when that will be launching.

We're very excited to get our hands on on that so we can figure out how to use it and get things going before before we get too into the season.

Um are there other updates?

I'm looking at you, Paul, like there's something that I'm nothing else.

I will add that our uh call for vendors uh will be going out this week.

Uh we ask that they complete an application.

It's just for the forward shows this year.

Um they are we asked for a deposit, but we refund that when uh they complete a survey so we can uh get some information from them on how they did and how they thought things went, so we can make changes uh each year and improve the system.

Uh, but that will hopefully be going out this week.

So if you know anybody that's does vending and wants to uh come join a forward show.

Um because the application should be on the uh website.

Um there's evidently some glitches that were already found out.

Um but yep, they can just uh they hopefully it will be up and it won't go away.

Uh there's two days.

We're hoping that it'll be this week and then applications due by the 10th of April.

Um, so it's a short, short time frame.

But we're looking forward to.

We've had some inquiries already from people, and so we're looking for a good selection to choose from.

Uh, we do not go out and get our favorite vendors.

Um last year we got some new ones.

Uh so it's it is a good process that helps us identify different vendors, different food types.

Um, we try to do vegan and vegetarian and desserts and meals and um craft beer.

We do have one craft beer tent a week.

So it's uh it's a good mix and it's a good mix, yeah.

And that's part of um, we've tweaked our application process.

I noticed Mary added some checkboxes so that we are able to get that information uh more standardized with offerings so that we're able to put, we're hoping on the app things like yep, this vendor has vegan offerings, gluten-free offerings because that's something people have always wanted.

We haven't always gotten that information from the vendors in time to market that early enough.

Um, and we would like to do that.

Um I will say also today I just got a um I connected with our gosh, I can't think of his title, but um, he is another teammate at the city who does um active transportation, so busing and biking and all that.

And so I was hoping to connect with him to talk about forward.

The other thing is I'm thinking about forward and messaging is as I had brought to you before is parking is a concern.

So we're hoping to um figure out yeah, what we might be able to do to kind of alleviate some of that strain, maybe with um partnering with other um community sites um and doing something like that.

I also want to just quickly touch base on grants.

So this is also a very busy grant season for us right now.

Um we have a CMAC grant coming up that is due, um, which we will be applying for to support passport sessions, and we also will be applying for an accessible arts grant.

So that's a new grant that we've applied for one previous year.

I believe it this is only on the second year's bombard um through the state arts board.

And so that is a grant that provides funding to either provide services or physical equipment to support accessibility and arts.

Um we did apply last year and we're not funded.

We're applying again this year, and what we're seeking funding for is hiring um basically a consultant to come in and to audit our sites because they are so unusual, and to write a customized plan to help us understand how we can feasibly make the sites more accessible in a very broad way.

Um we don't have a lot of the challenges that say a theater does, um, it being in a physical space.

And as a result, we're able, we already have some things that theaters are implementing, like low sensory uh experiences.

We have the luxury of saying you can leave if you're overstimulated or go further back, or you know, you you can move around, you can kind of come and go.

So we have some of that already built in.

But because we're in an open air venue, that is very tricky from um a physical standpoint for a lot of folks.

Uh we don't have dedicated really the ability to have a lot of um flat space for people to say put a wheelchair or um dedicated seating for that type of a thing.

And we've I know over the years we've struggled with how to approach that.

And so I'm really hoping that we will have some resources to be able to have someone come in to really tailor something to our specific situation.

Um, just to let you know, I I'll be really excited if we get that funding.

If not, I'm gonna keep applying for it over and over again because that's something that's really important and uh it's just something that it's difficult to sometimes get the resources to apply toward.

Um the city did just recently hire a new accessibility coordinator, but they're one human being, and we are all pouncing upon this poor person when they start uh in a couple of weeks.

But um, I'm sure they will be able to help us in in um in as much as they can, but of course they have to work on the whole, the whole city.

But um, from a grant funding perspective, that is what I've got for you.

I don't think we have any other only other topic I'd like to bring about, bring up is volunteers.

Um last year we were fortunate enough to have enough interns uh that we were able to cover a lot more tasks, crowd counting, uh donation collection, helping with surveys at Riverside, handing out uh postcard schedules, uh and and other information.

Uh we probably won't get that this year.

So I'm asking you all if you um first off, if you want to come and help us at all of the shows, they are more than happy to have you come.

Uh but second, uh if you know of groups that might want to be uh available to help us on any given evening, either a forward show or riverside show, it doesn't matter.

Um depending on the show, it's a little bit different.

Uh responsibilities, but uh people who want to get out and talk to people.

Um it's it's right out there.

We did that last year.

Did you yes you did come a couple of times and you did collections, right?

Yes, and did you do any help with surveying at the Riverside Table?

Only no, not at the table.

Okay, no, okay.

So you're also asking for people to help with surveying at the table, yes, for Riverside specifically, because there's such a large quantity of people because they give away a guitar every week.

Right.

So um we get more people for that.

Strat?

Uh well, yeah, it's but it's the um American or Mexican uh still get answering.

Goodness your ear dance.

It's a guitar.

That's why.

But also um, if anyone is interested in coordinating uh volunteers, um, that is also available, which would be a little bit more in depth.

Um making sure people show up, you know, kind of getting contact information and sending out emails so that they remember to come and things like that, but uh kind of a volunteer coordinator.

Um but yes, we're going to be desperate.

We do take um volunteers as young as high school.

So if there's if there's high schoolers, I don't think elementary kids would be appropriate, but uh I can't conscript my children yet.

Yes, not yet.

Do honors students still need volunteer hours during the summer.

I think they do National Honor Society desk.

Right.

So reaching out to the big three, possibly lords to high schools and saying, hey, um, any national honor society students need summertime volunteering hours to just have a little card for them and say three hours or two hours.

I know what Laura probably three quarters of the National Honor Society kids are also in a music program.

Right.

It would love that.

Do you know someone at Lure that I could reach out to?

I can find out.

My kids go there, but I'm done.

I can't remember that person's name.

Yeah, um, she says that as an alum.

I know.

I jump in to say, I don't know.

I have to figure out who that would be, but I'll ask.

Oh, hopefully everyone was there when I was on.

I'm just thinking that that is a possibility.

That's a great idea.

Oh, population.

Yeah.

Um and they would be serious.

Yes.

Sure.

They would have fun, but they wouldn't.

Oh, yes, we want them to have fun.

But they would be more, they would probably show up and more inclined to keep to their commitments.

Yeah.

That's a great idea.

We also had um we had a, and this hasn't developed yet, but we had a conversation uh the department here with um our CET colleagues, so that's library and parks, and we were talking about kind of goals and long-term strategy and vision.

And one of the things that was discussed was um survey data.

How do we get data that we know how the community is receiving things and are we meeting needs and stuff like that?

And so someone um in that discussion was saying that some groups have young folks or folks that go around with a slate of like three questions, and they literally just ask questions and write down, but it's standardized.

So if we can get a whole cadre of humans to come at the events, I mean, we could also consider one day implementing something like that because that's a staffing concern.

But if we have and then it basically helps to get at some of that qualitative, quantitative do not get enough response from the surveys that are there at the events with the QR codes.

No, no, not really, because what happens is the same people.

Oh, fill out the survey every week for the get to win the guitar.

Oh, but I meant also the neighborhood ones too.

Oh, right.

I mean, they're building that's building.

Yeah, that's a very new behavior.

So we only started surveying, gosh, two years ago.

Yeah.

So and it's about stable.

So our numbers are not terrible.

But you want more numbers.

We want more numbers.

And the thing is, too, is that they're not particularly in-depth surveys, but they're also not just two check boxes.

Right.

So the appeal of having you know, maybe two or three questions is that you're talking to someone, so they may tell you capturing that actual qual, like very high quality.

Um why I'm here is sometimes hard on a survey because people are tired, they're like, I'm entering to win the guitar, I'm not gonna tell you, but you know, this is I'm bringing my baby here for the first time, and yada yada yada.

When you talk to someone in the park, that's what you get.

So it's kind of this idea of all of us going, okay.

Well, what is a way we could standardize some of these questions and get the good data we really want to show impact?

Um, and that it was brought up like, well, maybe it just needs to be collected by people.

Maybe that's actually how you get this data um across because that's a commonality with library parks and music is that we are interfacing with community, and the vision is to build community, and so we may need to think about different tools to do that.

Um so I'm just saying, as I hear talking about potentially groups of students, like that might be that's a really good project for the honors.

We ask on the survey, I think we asked how does how does how did you feel or how did this concert make you feel?

Yeah, um, just kind of tongue in cheek, hoping for uh uh things to you know, phrases and catchphrases to use in grants and right um sometimes you get really good stuff.

You get a lot of awesomes and greats and fantastics, but nothing very uh few times do you get a really good story.

You need a person saying tell me more.

Yeah, and and that would as you you know, all of you who've been there and have talked to folks in the parks, that's very easy, it's very organic.

It just happens, you know, when you're going around and just holding a survey card or collecting contributions, those those um experiences are just what happens.

Um have a statistics um class, UMR, I'm sure they would do I I my college, I was originally marketing research.

I wrote surveys and did put all that together.

I know how that could be a part of a statistics class program.

No, I haven't like it's I have to secret out and I'm gonna count something.

Uh but I mean I know how like statistics classes that's kind of like a project they do anyways.

I wonder if there's some kids that would be that would be amazing.

Do they have anything like that in LR?

Maybe maybe RCTC, they would have to have a statistical last we can because then it's put in real world practice.

Or even what's the one at Bethel Lutheran?

Yeah, um possibly I don't remember what I don't know.

It's a it's uh Saints Galastica or it's uh another satellite ABC satellite college, yeah, offering minimal yeah, mostly business courses, which fall right into that.

Yeah, and then also we may be joined, hopefully we'll be joined by council members at some point.

They're looking to at ways to um have more community engagement and visibility.

So we are hoping that they will join us at the parks and um also be one of one of the many going out to the talking people, welcoming folks and what so we'll see.

Is there like an ideal number of volunteers you want per night or no?

It's unlimited.

It is unlimited, but for Riverside, it's it's yeah, um the thing about Riverside is the more people, and this is mostly for donation collection, the more people we we have walking through the people, walking through the crowds, um the better coverage we get.

The more people we we have walking through the people, walking through the crowds, um the better coverage we get.

Um Riverside or excuse me, forward, you know, we can get away with four or five people.

Sure.

Yeah, a couple people in the crowd can usually go through it.

Um, but as unfortunately, Sean's not here, and she's an old hat at this, and she has said many times how she'll go through the crowd and then come back and she'll reach more people because they're they you have to take two or three passes in each section before people are actually cognizant of what you're doing.

Really let the guilt set in.

So we walked up the survey cards as well, and so we really noticed which has a schedule on it as well.

So last year was the first year that we did that, um, kind of the simultaneous contribution collection and and survey, and we noticed I believe there was a significant uptick in well, we certainly noticed there was a spike in after we did that, like timing-wise, more people at that time filled up the survey.

So I can't remember if we had a total increase in volume, but I know we had a spike of activity um that was directly correlated to the timing of when we were going into the crowd, um, because people were just scanning the QR code, right?

Which is easier um than getting up and trying to find a sign, and and it's gonna be a little different with the signage in the parks, we're kind of streamlining with the app and some other things, but um, but I mean, just like anything else, it's a lot of people, and the more um we can interface with folks, the better.

Right basically, and people are usually appreciative of they're not they're not upset, they don't feel bothered.

So just to I don't know what we have for 2024, but for 2025, we had 1778 riverside surveys.

We used to get that when we did the paper surveys, we would get that many a night because all people did was put their names on them, but we still had to go through the emotion of uncrumpling them and looking at them forward.

We're up to 219 number of surveys.

Um, and honestly, I think both of those each week, no, total.

Total.

So this is what we're saying, but we still had to go through the emotion of uncrumpling them and looking at them forward.

We're up to 219 number of surveys.

Um, and honestly, I think both of those each week, no, total total.

So this is what we're saying.

Yeah, so but that is up from last year, but it is a new thing, and there's no guitar that we're handing out at forward.

Um, so there's no there's no huge incentive, and the population is much less.

And the population is much smaller.

Um, so based on that, like for the largest night would have been forward one, two last week.

We had 370 people there, and 45 people filled out surveys.

So I mean, that's 12 percent.

So I mean the percent are the decent, yeah, yeah.

But it's not, but it is a new behavior, and you know, so it also the thing trying to figure out, and this is taking some time basically, and kind of you know, looking into a crystal ball.

Do we need a better incentive?

Or are people not moved by incentives?

Do we need a different mechanism?

Do we need a t-shirt?

Well, so we did that.

We tried doing artists merch.

Yeah, well, it's not always a t-shirt because they don't always have t-shirts, um, but it's signed CDs, it's signed our albums and that that hasn't really so that's what we offer for forward.

Um, we've had prize packs and and the merch.

And so it's like it doesn't seem to, you know, maybe it's if you're coming to forward and you're not a huge thing.

The band, you know, maybe it's not as exciting.

So we've talked with colleagues um at the library and kind of battered around ideas for experiences that maybe that's more exciting.

You get to drive the book mobile.

Oh my gosh, our colleagues in risk management right now, they're like twitching.

Um they're like, oh what so we've talked about, you know, so for Riverside, for instance, you know, at the first three forwards, could you then get a meet and greet pass to you know one of the riversides, which we give away anyway, typically not all of weeks, but you know, as available, blah blah blah, all of that.

Um so we don't really know what would excite people to fill out the bank.

How about this?

Um, you know, before the next meeting in May, we all ask our friends and associates what is it that would make you want to complete the survey.

And and like what kind of incentive.

Yeah.

How would they help?

Maybe meeting the band, maybe um merch, maybe um, or or whatever, you know, ask them what would be like the incentive to complete the survey.

What would be the ice cream or cherry on top?

Right.

Literally ice cream, maybe doodles vendor to get a is it a gift certificate?

Is it uh food?

Or the call rooms I know.

Maybe that tokens.

I don't know.

I love wooden tokens for stuff.

I'm old fashioned.

But that's that's kind of what we're wondering.

It's like what would be appropriate incentive.

Like if the ice shape wasn't there like a shaved ice shaved ice or something like that.

Usually a trigger of some Italian ice or something like that.

And there was a couple of creamer of ice creamer or something like that.

Yeah, a lot of people upset if you said shaved ice because it's all shaving ice.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

We're all friends here.

It's all right, you know.

But no, that yeah.

But now we we would have to have them, we would have to have vendor either the vendors agree to it.

Agree to agree to provide that.

Yeah, um, without being paid.

I'm just talking about like for one person.

Or two people.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh two winners.

Yep, and we I mean, we just figure out the parameters.

Like and sometimes that's literally what it is.

It's literally something really small.

And so we're overthinking it by trying to do a prize pack in the merch, and it's literally like fill it out.

You might um or an experience or something else that we can offer.

But maybe it's a cookie.

Yep.

Or you know, is it something that um so we also have the ability to partner with the parks department?

So is it a water park pass?

Yeah, is it you know, around the huge if you're a couple of others perfectly awesome?

So what is it?

Is it is it a picnic blanket?

Like what what is it that makes sense?

So I think uh it would maybe too late to come back with feedback on what people have said now, it would be still be able to be implemented by June.

So yeah, tight.

That would be that would be very helpful.

Or would you prefer us just to email you, Mary, and say, I've talked to 10 friends and they said a beach ball or something.

That's I mean, if you want to, if you know right away, please feel free to email me.

Um otherwise, you know, if we don't hear from you, we'll ask you at the next meeting.

Yeah, we'll do both.

Yeah, I mean, any feedback that we can get is always welcome.

Um, just bands.

Not just bands.

Not just bands.

Hopefully by then we will know bands, and we'll be able to that's yeah, that's if it's something as little as that, yeah.

Um hopefully be easily done.

Um that's I mean, I it would be really nice if it's something that connects to the event, like a vendor token or a pool pass because then we're reinforcing the story of this is the city.

The city also has this water park where we have these golf courses.

So um, I'm pretty confident that the arts department would be willing to support that.

So and they're not a part of the city, but that new mini golf course in town opening in April.

I think something blue lagoon.

Yeah, I mean a little a round of mini golf.

Where's that gonna be?

Is it north?

North and ultimately north nerds, yeah.

Yeah, it's but yeah.

Okay, um, are the reports done?

Are we ready to move on?

They are.

See, you can be started about marketing and all right.

We are up to number nine, old business.

Does anyone have any old business that they'd like to bring up from the last meeting?

I would before I forget, I would like to thank those who submitted their picks for the opening apps.

Oh, yes.

Um I didn't.

I had a dog who deleted it and then saved it emptied.

Your pics were added, but I opened it and it was gone.

I was so curious to see what your picks were.

And we will um, yeah, once we not worthy.

You'll probably be, I'll probably send emails out to you guys first, so you know who gets picked for opening acts.

Umce we select them because uh it was very helpful to get other views.

Yeah, it was an interesting process.

I'm sure yeah.

Well, yeah, just say the word interesting.

Yeah, there you go.

There's some on there.

I was just good for them for shooting it out, right?

Yeah, but it's somebody's work and their passion, so you give it consideration, even if it's um not something that would translate well to the audience at all.

Um, so did you get through the whole list?

I was probably 80%.

Oh and then I had my my we share a laptop and I had a uh a teenager decided that she wanted the laptop, so she went through cleared stuff, whatever, got her stuff open, and then must have I don't know what she did, but saved it after she had wiped it.

So I opened up an empty document the morning album.

Like, I'm not doing this again, sorry.

Well, don't feel bad.

It happened to me once too.

Yeah, it worked out.

I stopped reviewing the out of state ones that weren't Iowa, Wisconsin, Dakotas.

Um, unless they literally wrote something on there that like my brother is a wrestler for U about.

And I'm like, okay, that counts.

You know, there was a state tie.

But if they're like from Nashville with no or Florida or with no tie with no tie whatsoever, it's like yeah, yeah.

Or Ireland.

We had quite a few international acts apply.

And I actually reached out to some of them.

Um, and you know, I didn't want to say, but they they were serious and they were interested.

Um, some bands say yes, we come to the states every summer and do a tour.

And so, you know, if we can make that work, we would certainly be interested.

Um some said, well, yes, if you wanted to hire us, we would apply for a and I'm like, no, we're not gonna vote you the visa, oh and to be an opening act.

To be an opening act that makes nothing.

Yeah, that's a lot nowadays.

But uh, yeah, but the the acts that are outside of I use the same boundaries.

Yeah, just around the state.

But the ones as you go out further and you listen to those and you're like, wow, some of these bands are really good.

And in fact, last year we hired one of the opening act applicants as our passport uh band.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, sometimes it's interesting.

Um and sometimes we find forward headliners.

We're going through, and it's like, oh, okay, well, yeah, maybe, or you know, so sometimes you you never know what you find.

It's always interesting to see a five, but yeah, someone probably not gonna sponsor a visa.

But it's it's so nice to have all of these names.

Um we never got this many.

I don't know what has changed in the last couple of years, but previously it was maybe 50 applicants.

50.

That would be so easy to get right.

Well, and we did oh marketing did I don't recall doing anything differently.

Social media.

We we did social media.

Well, it was put out on Facebook.

Um I'm gonna I'm gonna die on the hill.

Yeah, you can die on the hill.

Die on the hill of branding and and consistent marketing and branding, which you know makes things look a certain way.

I mean, it it's the same for anyone, right?

If we're trying to get someone to come to an event, we're trying to get someone to perform at an event, having something look a certain way, um makes a difference.

Makes a difference.

Um I handed out all of those cards.

Uh the schedules.

Yes, yes.

Do you have any more of them?

I do have some at my desk.

Okay.

If anyone would like to take some of those cards and put them out, maybe your favorite store, independent store, hand them out to friends that you know come to the shows.

They can put it in their calendar ahead of time.

So they don't schedule their dog vet appointment or something.

Ever on a four hour night.

Don't get sick on these days.

I still think that there is a little bit of misconception about forward that how early it starts that people are thinking it's gonna start at six o'clock or something like that.

It's like you need to get there.

Yeah, you need to get there.

But it's right after work.

It is, unfortunately.

And then it's a Wednesday night.

So right, because they're neighborhoods and they need to be quiet.

It needs to start early.

Um for the volunteers, are there any kind of the parking for them?

Is that any easier than say general population?

If the volunteers come early enough, there would be better parking.

But but um if you're just coming right before the show starts, it's gonna be the same as everybody else.

But then again, if you're coming to see the opening band, you're probably going to have better luck than those people that think that they're gonna come in at 6:30.

I'm just thinking some some motivation to get.

Yeah, yeah.

It's hard to reserve spots, I will say.

Um I was late to an event because I couldn't find parking.

Uh-huh.

Um last year at White Oaks at White Oaks because of construction by my house.

So well, um holding spots.

Even I don't get a spot held.

Why don't you although they're they're rethinking that because they don't want me to not be there at the event.

Um White Oaks is the most difficult parking in the parking followed by uh what's the one on 7th Street?

Cook Cook Park, yeah.

And then uh even Cascade Park, yeah.

They still they have two lots.

And they have two lots, and there's over 400 parking spots there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now I have we have talked about this quite a bit.

Um, I've identified some parking lots uh near parks.

Um two of them are churches, I think, that will I'll be contacting to see if they wouldn't allow us to park the big church across the street from white oaks.

Yeah, yeah, but I believe it's right by the light.

Yeah, so safety issues would be non-existent.

But White Oaks is not bad as long as you under in that neighborhood.

We put out signs.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Do have you had a lot of complaints from residents in the neighborhood on the okay, good.

You could kind of get there from it's a little bit more of a walk, but I was thinking like Gibbs, and then if you go kind of back even farther, there's those townhomes or so you can just cross right over, go down the Douglas and go there, um, up the hill Holy Spirit churches up there.

And that's they might have Wednesday Wednesday night mass there.

That's what I'm hoping is that by meeting with um this active transportation coordinator and with the transit folks as well.

Is I'm really hoping that we can identify some short um pathways using the parks and the trails um or the trails to say, hey, if you park here, it's a straight shot, you don't cross any lights, it's five minutes, it's shaded.

Yeah, um, you could market that to the active Rochester resident.

Those that are not that active are still gonna pull up the White Oaks parking lot, right?

And turn around and leave.

Yeah, but it's one of those things that um thanks, Paul.

Bye.

It's one of those things that I think more people might be inclined to decide to like park their car and maybe take a short bike ride or a short walk if they knew like I don't, I'm still relatively new.

I knew so I don't know all the places where I can park and walk.

So I'm still so if I knew, okay, it's five minutes, it's shaded, you know, good, my kids can get some energy out.

Literally all of the parks, the cool things about them, they're there are paths right next to you.

Oh, yeah, no matter what, but that could be a marketing angle, you know, showing people on bicycles with like their little backpacks going to the concert, or the wagons, yeah, you know, because that's the thing is you know, if you think about kind of who's coming there, you know, a lot of young families, so it's also appealing to not get stuck in traffic trying to leave.

Oh, I bet the code.

Yeah, so it's like, okay, well, it might actually be advantageous for you to not be in the immediate parking lot.

And then another thing we're trying to do is reserve more spaces in the most ideal locations for folks who have mobility needs.

Um we do reserve ADA parking, we do extend the amount of ADA parking available in the parks, it is not sufficient.

And we know that.

And actually, we met with PD at the end of last season and kind of talked over, hey, what were you know, what were you guys seeing?

What do you think are some suggestions?

Parking came up.

Those of you who are at White Oaks, you could see why.

PD was having people park on the lawn.

Because they were concerned about what was happening with all of the traffic.

But they they said, yeah, you know, more ADA, more accessible parking.

And I asked, okay, how many spots?

And the number they gave me was very high.

Um, which isn't to say that I immediately ruled it out, but it was like, okay, cool.

So if that is what PE is assessing as the needs and we know we need more, is there a way to have other folks who maybe are able to do more of a short walk?

Can we alleviate some of the um the congestion in um or competition or spots closest to the park?

So that may be this maybe a multi-season type of thing, um, because it takes a lot of different players, but that's on the radar as well.

So you've received a lot of concerns in regard to accessibility as far as people not being able to.

Um, I would say we we don't actually receive a lot of direct feedback about that.

Um surprisingly, but we do notice anecdotally, like folks who are having more mobility um concerns or who are having to walk longer distances.

Both Paul and Mary have helped folks into the park.

Um, you know, at White Oaks, once again, all comes back to White Oaks is the ones that were no, that is L where it's steep.

Yeah.

Um, so the parking for AVA is right there, which is great.

But then you have to come down in a pink minute.

Oh, and so once this is another thing where with an accessibility audit, it's kind of like, what do we do?

Like, do we not use this park?

Is there a way to do this?

All the parks are compliant for accessibility, but the accessibility standards for a park are different than for a building.

So what we're trying to do is basically exceed the um minimum threshold and figure out how to serve people.

We don't get a lot of complaints, but we do know that we're in a community where there are people who have statistically higher medical needs.

So we're trying to proactively ensure that we're providing that.

Um, and yeah, I mean, PD PD was seeing concerns.

I mean, I think they said I don't remember if they say a dozen or 20 or at least some number they wanted more spaces.

This is extremely outside the box, so forgive me if I seem crazy.

Um there's a lot of apartments and everything going up northwest Rochester.

I live right over there, and I know like they have the pines and they're expanding and all that.

And the Pines has shuttles.

Is there a way to maybe get an agreement with the apartments where they allow like people to park in their lot?

And they would oversee it as long as they got some kind of like tag on coattail publicity with that location.

I mean, I I would think that I find out how many people would be utilizing something like that first before you to contract.

Well, not a contract.

Where would you if you're park right in the pines parking lot or right over there?

Isn't that for residents?

Well, it depends that I'm sure the the I mean I would assume it would be pretty full of just residents.

Maybe they know they're building a lot more now.

Yeah, they're sitting there.

And find nothing.

Well, that's well, that would be a question to ask them.

They would the the management of that would probably know and that was something else.

Maybe they have some options.

I don't know.

We've thought about using classes.

Okay, just a trolley.

Yeah, I thought about that.

Yeah, yeah.

Where people park in there.

Hi there.

We're having separate conversations now.

So I'm gonna bring it back.

Okay.

Um never do that.

Pardon?

No.

Sean never did that.

Sorry.

Um I thought it was you.

No, it's not five o'clock alarm.

Okay.

Um if you're open to it, I do like that idea that you have, Dennis, but I would think that uh finding out feasibility first and finding out how many people would utilize it and at what facilities like maybe that could be part of the survey.

Well, adding something about accessibility or um I know you have a question about how did you get here?

Did you walk?

Did you ride your bicycle?

Did you drive?

Right.

Maybe something like a follow-up question to that one, maybe such.

And that might be a nice thing.

Such as did you have any difficulty coming in today?

Or something worded nicer than that.

Do we want to ask about parking specifically?

How is parking for you?

Yeah.

You could just great, you know, a scale of one to five.

So that's not just you know what the answer is.

Right.

Well, okay.

But to your to your point about so um this this uh teammate I'm gonna meet with to talk about active transportation.

So that might be might be a good um point of contact to say, hey, you know, if we were to look into this, you know, kind of how could we potentially market this?

What do you think might kind of and and do we tie it into some kind of a promotion?

Do we partner with we hike to, you know, do we do a giveaway?

Do we do like what are we doing to kind of sell this um shuttle idea?

And then very excitingly next year we'll have BRT for Riverside and for Cascade if we're using Cascade.

So because the BRT line is gonna go right there.

I'm sorry, what's BRT?

Uh that is our bus rapid transit system that's going off in downtown street.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's gonna be a free bus.

It's kind of a shuttle, and you can hop on, hop off.

So people will be able to park.

You'll be able to promote that, like crazy.

Yep.

But it isn't limited to the second street corridor.

Yeah, right, which is perfect for and cascade.

Yeah.

Um, so very excited about that's gonna be great for Riverside.

I mean, there's already ample parking near Minero Park, but this is do you not want to get stuck in that parking rail kind of nine o'clock?

Right, for sure.

Um, so yeah, so how do we basically can we build things like that that make sense for forward or um because yes, they're neighborhood park concerts, but the neighborhood parks can hold way more people than we currently have, but the neighborhoods have a little bit of difficulty with all the right.

Um so great.

So get some fresh air if you can, bike, shuttle, do something else.

Yeah, um, but yeah, any other ideas you have, send them our way.

We're gonna try to see what we can implement, and maybe like I said, maybe it takes some seasons, but um it's exciting to see the growth of forward year over year, 20% year over year.

So the community makes it that is making it their own and so we want more people to be able to share in that.

Well, and your idea of shuttles is I mean, even to approach hotels, yeah.

Yeah.

That may have parking, ample parking, um, and would be able to for the price of advertising.

Right, right.

We'll have to add it to our sponsor.

A parking parking sponsor.

You're certainly getting a lot of visibility.

Right.

I'm sorry, I was just thinking about I might reach out to um PTK, the honor society, RCTC, to see if they have to do the community things too.

Just like the honor society for the high schoolers.

I was just thinking about that.

I yeah, and what is that stuff for again?

Uh five theta cappa.

That's so long ago.

I was like, oh my god, I remembered that.

Um may I move on to item 10.

I think yeah, I think some of our discussion on transportation, parking and whatnot, uh, was a little bit of new business to finding out about shuttling, possibly using marketing for new trainers.

Is it for it's it's uh their buses, they're I think they're energy efficient.

Are they they're electric buses?

But they're using electric buses.

Yeah, big electric buses.

He was a big maintenance.

Oh, the manager for the city of Rush for 40 years.

Yeah, last year.

Wow, we check it.

So you're all about it.

Yeah, you're like, and thank you.

Good luck with that.

You left in the a lot of people did quit.

Well, I tried to tell them not to have 60 foot buses because they wanted five and 10 minutes uh runtime, and you didn't need that big a bus to run them that often.

Sure.

But they insisted Mayo wouldn't back down.

They want the 60 foot elect, and they have four of them.

I think six now.

And they're not very um dependable buses, they're terrible.

It would have been better if they could have bought the buses that they currently use to get like from California, those are better buses.

Are they and they're shorter, but they don't make a 60 foot because the market's too small for them to get into the market, so they only only one company, actually, there's two of them, but they're not a government.

You can't get them to government funding because they're not uh they're not um they're off out of the country.

See, and that that makes you nervous when there's only one.

Well, if you look at the market, yeah, they got it pretty much for the other company to come into it.

They wouldn't have a very big market to come into to them.

But yeah, I was all involved in that a lot.

They're like here it is, it's the sector approaches.

But yeah, so we're we're we're very supportive of our teammates getting that up and running, a big project.

But yeah, so we're we're we're very supportive of our teammates getting that up and running, a big project.

But uh yeah, so when it's up and running, we will be championing it as much as we possibly can, but it's a big um a big lift.

Even though what they've got to do for all the stops and stuff, they got a lot of work to do, yeah.

And that's why we're people ask us questions, we're like, we're the music department.

Right, right, right.

We're just supportive and we're very excited to share it with the public when we when it's ready for prime time.

Yeah, but yeah, thank project.

Yeah, thank you.

Um number 10, new business and QA.

Um, does anyone have any questions about the new business items other than what we've already discussed with old slash new business?

When's your next meeting?

Uh it is May 26th at 4 p.m.

Probably in this room, I'm assuming are you gonna have us take us up around town again?

Like flyers?

Yeah, the five posters, yes, there will be posters available uh for both forward and rubber side.

So we'll talk about that in May.

But um I'll probably even beforehand.

Okay, uh depending on when we are able to settle on an on-sale date or excuse me, an out announcement date, nothing for sale.

Nope.

Um an announcement date.

Um, and then go from there.

And if anyone wants to get some of those little cards from Mary right after this meeting to hand out to friends and neighbors and I do have a few left, not a lot.

But yep, I'd be glad to share.

Well, why keep them?

Because soon exactly you'll have the fans listed, yeah.

They'll just be why what's the point of having just cards with dates?

So um and and Sean should be back in May to do this.

Uh I am going to go to number seven.

Said 10 before, uh adjournment.

Uh if there's no other business, we look to uh for a motion to adjourn.

So thank you very much.

Um anyone opposed, say nay.

Anyone want to stay a little bit longer?

No?

Okay.

We are now adjourned.

Well done, thank you.