Oh wow... everything went through a lot easier than expected! Planning our concert series for the coming year has always been a bit of a nervous and fraught time... we are freelancers, and our guest artists are freelancers... and so we depend a lot on how the other ensembles are also planning their year schedules... and this year, I was a bit more organised, and got the draft scheduling for the big ensembles, as well as the ensembles that are more similar in size and genre.

After weeding out the various potential concert and work clashes (and the December/January summer lull period) , we were left with about 10 weekend options. A quick check with the venue had all of those options being free... but not all of them could be used together for the four concerts. After all, we couldn't clump too much within the year, as it is better to spread them as evenly throughout the year as possible.

So, these dates were potentially easy lock-ins with little in the way of clashes... if they were possible with our four different principal guests. Two of the concerts just had a single principal guest whilst two others had two principals... these would have to be able to do the dates, as the concerts would be built around them! And if they could, then we could lock in the venue and start recruiting the additional non-principal guest artists.

Earlier in the week, I wrote the emails... and the two single concerts had lots of green for most of the dates... and then one of each of the doubles gave their availabilities. We had leaping out us from our Excel spreadsheet, a possible four date well spread out solution! Oh my gosh... it would all just hinge on the two that hadn't replied!

So, a quick single email with a single question checking to see if that single option was possible????

TWO YESES!!!!! We were good to go.

Email to lock in the venue... emails to have the principals lock in the dates and payment conditions. Update the local concert shared calender that we (well, most of the groups...) use to help avoid clashes with concerts. Looking at which... we were the FIRST OFF THE RANKS! In our first year, people didn't mind clashing with us... but I think we proved ourselves in that year, and in this second year, other groups have avoided being on the same weekend as us! That's a good thing... even if it was just co-incidence!

Now we can get to work on the publicity and all of that other stuff... We have the graphic ready to go, and will have the postcards made up in time for our last concert. We will have to come up with some interesting concert names for that though... we have until late October... same time as the tax due date!!! ARGHGHGHGH...

But for now, things have run crazily smooth! Fingers crossed that we won't have too many unexpected hiccups coming down the road!

Handy Crypto Tools

Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Coinbase Wallet: Multi chain wallet with lots of opportunities to Learn and Earn!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
WooX: The centralised version of WooFi. Stake WOO for fee-free trades and free withdrawals! This link also gives you back 25% of the commission.
GMX.io: Decentralised perpetual futures trading on Arbitrum!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.
KuCoin: I still use this exchange to take part in the Spotlight and Burning Drop launches.
MEXC: Accepts HIVE, and trades in most poopcoins! Join the casino!
ByBit: Leverage and spot trading, next Binance?
OkX: Again, another Binance contender?