Woody's Hoedown

Woody’s Hoedown Benefit Dance and Toy Drive, held by the LiVE@NiGHT and LiVE Outreach committees was held on November 5th, 2010. The event was brainstormed, planned, and executed by the LiVE@NiGHT committee with event logistics assistance and financial aid from LiVE Outreach. The event was held in Tillman Hall and featured Josh Owens, an acoustic guitarist who won the crowd over. The event went well and the crowd of over 150 rose over $200 worth of diapers and three large boxes of toys for Oconee County Department of Social Services and Oconee United Way’s Family Friends Program. There was a lot of positive feedback about the event performer and t-shirt giveaway. Negative feedback included a poor location, crowded spaces, and a lack of PR about the actual “hoedown.” Much of this feedback was accompanied by the feeling that people came simply to get a shirt and could not dance to the music that was playing or felt too uncomfortable to do so. PR for the event consisted of fliers in all academic buildings and residence halls, the union, Hendrix, and public areas; toilet paper, golf cart PR with fliers taped to Frisbees and cups, mass e-mails, a Facebook event, twitter tweets, and table tents in Hendrix food court, Harcombe, Schletter, and the Canteen. The final cost for the event is around $1350 but will be split by two committees.

Contra Dance

October 22, 2010

I loved this event.  Our goal was to make sure that the Clemson Contra Club’s dance was more successful and that more people attended.  We definitely accomplished this.  We helped them to increase their bank account by roughly $700 because we covered the costs.  This event was very cheap to put on, and the organization was great to work with.  They helped hang fliers and our meetings were very productive because we split the workload evenly and both organizations knew what was expected.

                  For advertising, we hung fliers on campus, did a mass e-mail, had a Facebook event, put the event on CLEMSONLiVE’s website, put the event on the Toilet Paper, and had Facebook and Twitter status updates.  They told us that all of the advertising we helped to provide definitely increased attendance.  We offered volunteers to collect money so that the club members could dance.  We also provided some lamps to make the lighting better in there.

                  If I could do anything else, I would want to help plan from the start where the dance was going to be and add more decorations.  I think everything else went great, but I think with more decorations and maybe more emphasis on come early for the beginner’s lesson that the dance could have been even better.  I loved working with them and they were so grateful that we helped!  It was definitely a success.

--Brooklyn Martin

Margaret Durante

October 17, 2010

I worked with Phi Delta on bringing Margaret Durante to campus.  It was going to be joined with the race they planned to have that Friday.  Due to the Greek Life instance around this time, the race was canceled and that left the concert to be by without a conjoining event.  We then had to combine the prizes and find a way to make money for the fraternity’s philanthropy.  It caused problems with the state’s raffle rule, and therefore did not go the way that I wanted it.  There were only about 60 people total that were there.  I wish that there would have been more people that showed up.  However, I think that having the event on a Sunday was not a smart choice. 

I do like that Takenote ended up opening for Margaret Durante, even if they did not specify that they were going to show up.  I loved that people showed up and that the fraternity made money for their philanthropy.  I liked that Phi Delta was very willing to help out with meetings and things.  However, I think that when working with the contact, Scott Harkey, he requested too many meetings that did not accomplish much of anything.  I wish that I could have been a contact with Margaret Durante’s agent.  There was a lot of confusion when it came to when she was coming and who she was bringing.  It also took him a long time to get the rider.

As far as advertising we went, we put up fliers, passed out fliers at the Miranda Lambert concert, and made a Facebook event.  I did not have time to send a mass e-mail and our website was not up and running.  I think the event would have been more successful if it was attached to some other event, because she is not that famous of a performer.  I also think that if it was not on a Sunday night more people would have attended.  I was not completely satisfied with this event, and I would caution in the future to make sure that all of the contacts are shared between us and the organization that we are working with.

--Brooklyn Martin

More Golf Cart PR

Overall, golf cart PR went very well. We went all over campus, from Hendrix to Littlejohn. We couldn't find the megaphone so we ended up just yelling. We advertised the movie for that night (Salt) as well as the Contra dance for that night and the Pumpkin Carving contest the following week. Also, the frisbees we gave out had quotes from Inception, which we were able to advertise. People definitely heard us and we managed to give out a few Bowman Block Party shirts and frisbees and talk to people about their favorite events, which included the movies (especially outdoor showings) and Earth Day. One problem we encountered was an overall lack of students out at the time (11-1 on a Friday) most likely due to the fact that people try to schedule classes either avoiding Fridays altogether or only on Friday mornings. But we seemed to see the most people near the Brooks/Redfern area as well as up near Sikes and Sirrine. The golf cart was also manageable and fun to drive around. I would definitely do it again.

PR Date with Gus

A couple Fridays ago, Stephanie and I had the chance to hop onto Gus and take a ride
around campus for some Golf Cart PR. Armed with free t-shirts and frisbees, we decided to
hit campus around lunch time, hoping that students would be out and about, excited for the
coming weekend. Our first stop was the Brackett Hall area, where we experienced quite a few
students walking to class. We quickly yelled to them as we passed, spouting out the information
for that night’s movie and contra dancing events. After that, we made sure to hit Schilleter,
Hendrix, Harcombe, Fike, and other parts of campus that would allow us to reach many students
at a time. While we were PR-ing, our goal was to hand out free shirts to people that were seen
wearing CLEMSONLiVE shirts already. However, as we were driving around, we had trouble
finding students wearing CLiVE gear. Perhaps they were too excited for Solid Orange Friday
and decided to wear “Beat (Insert Team Name Here)” shirts instead? Despite the lack of CLiVE
pride, we made sure the students knew about our events, as we whizzed by them on the golf cart,
handing out free frisbees along the way. Overall, PR-ing on the golf cart was fun and worthwhile
– not only did we get the word out about free entertainment on campus, but we were able to
interact directly with the students in doing so. The only issue that I realized after our time PR-ing
was that a lot of students might not have come to campus that day due to a classes-free Friday.
Regardless, it was a great experience, and we can’t wait to take Gus out again sometime soon!

NiGHT of the TiGER

NiGHT of the TiGER, held by the LiVE@NiGHT committee was held on October 1^st, 2010. The event was brainstormed, planned, and executed by the LiVE@NiGHT committee with financial aid from Central Spirit, EMpower Clemson, and Fraternity and Sorority Life of Clemson University. The event was held on Bowman field and featured local favorite and Clemson University graduate Doug McCormick. 

The event went very well and the crowd of over 400 people enjoyed the concert. There was a lot of positive feedback about the event location, event time, event performer, and t-shirt giveaway. The concert had a short break for Central Spirit to announce the homecoming float winner which drew more people from fraternity and sorority life out to Bowman. The only negative feedback was the lack of food and that alcohol was not permitted. PR for the event consisted of a plot in the library, fliers in all academic buildings, the union, Hendrix, and public areas, toilet paper, golf cart PR with fliers taped to Frisbees, mass e-mails, a Facebook event, twitter tweets, and table tents in Hendrix food court, Harcombe, Schletter, and the Canteen. The final cost of the production of the event is not yet known but is approximated at about $11,000 with approximately $6,500 coming from LiVE@NiGHT’s budget.

--Brandon Norvelle

MOViES

So far, I have been pleased with the movie turnouts this semester. Our Start-of-the-
Semester Movies Series was a huge success – we had to turn a lot of people away at each
event. The movies were largely action films – Robin Hood, Killers, and Price of Persia:
The Sands of Time. All were not yet released on DVD which I think helps. I believe
the Series was such a great success because it was the first week of school and having
several movies in a row builds up the excitement and discussion amongst students. Plus,
freshmen are still new enough to not have too many other commitments going on at
night.
Our Blockbusters so far have been Iron Man 2 and Sex and the City 2. The theater was
full for Iron Man 2, however, Sex and the City 2 was not entirely full. Sex and the City
2 was shown on a Friday of a weekend without a football (most likely the first weekend
everyone travels home during). This is where weekend programming gets tricky – it’s
sort of hit-or-miss. Either, everyone wants something different and fun to do on a Friday
night (like go see Iron Man 2), or they leave campus entirely.
We have had two Spotlight showings so far – Our Family Wedding was a collaboration
with the Latin Fest and Home was co-sponsored by SEA and Solid Green. Both have
had disappointing turnouts of only about 50 people in attendance each, but both were
movies that hardly anyone had heard of. In the end, I like to look at it positively and
think that those people trust CLEMSONLiVE enough to provide decent entertainment.
The marketing for all of the movies so far has been nearly identical – Facebook event
a week in advance, fliers up on campus a week in advance, mass e-mail sent the day
of (or day before) the event, postings on our social networking sites, listings on the
www.clemsonlive.com, and showings of the film’s trailers at previous MOViES events.
The formula has been successful so far, but I think I will push a little more for our big
films like Toy Story 3 and Inception in November.
And finally, there haven’t been any technical difficulties so far. Yay!

--Kristen Kirk