Wherein Twestival screw us over with their egregious unprofessionalism.

http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2009/08/28.html

by danw • 17 years ago

128 42 17 years ago

chrismear• 17 years ago

Not that I'm condoning the behaviour of the Twestival organisers, but I find it hard to sympathise with the venue, given that they continued reserving the date for 'months' with no contract and no deposit paid. They took a risk on a clearly flakey client, and it didn't pay off.

thaumaturgy• 17 years ago

Yeah. Sometimes you try to avoid having to do business the way everyone else does, and sometimes it costs you, which sucks.

dtf• 17 years ago

The client was doing for charity. Which, as I'm sure many people know from experience, gives them carte blanche to be arseholes.

idlewords• 17 years ago

Yes, and a name like 'Twestival' should automatically translate to double deposit, cash only please.

notaddicted• 17 years ago

He does mention at the start that promoters are mostly like this, so it wasn't the red flag that it sounds like.

nir• 17 years ago

"We sent a contract, and asked for a deposit. Months went by. A few times they asked when they could stop by to drop off the deposit, but never actually did so."

The venue's actions seem pretty reasonable to me. They gave the organizers some slack, assuming these are basically decent people. It's not like they're dealing with some unknown or shady operation.

Still, discovering a Twitter-related operation turned out to be much noise/little signal shouldn't be that surprising :)

jgilliam• 17 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski

cyunker2• 17 years ago

Their website still lists DNA Lounge as the venue...

http://sanfrancisco.twestival.com/

cyunker2• 17 years ago

They've since updated it.

danw2• 17 years ago

They've also deleted blog posts mentioning DNA Lounge

diN0bot• 17 years ago

somewhat off tangent:

1. it seems that people are more likely to reschedule and not hold to commitments than 20 years ago.

2. has the population changed, or some other external factor, or has the culture changed?

3. why?

danw2• 17 years ago

Mobile Phones. Pre-mobile there was no way of letting someone know you are running late, or changing arrangements last minute.

joezydeco• 17 years ago

You've never worked with a subcontractor on a home remodelling project, have you? =)

These guys carry three cellphones AND a pager, but will never show up on time for an appointment or call to tell you they're not going to be at your house on the day you took off of work. But when that bill is due lookout: they're magically available and on the phone with you constantly.

dannyr• 17 years ago

Not to generalize but I lived in SoCal for 2 years and a good percentage of people there do not honor commitments. Either they are very late or just won't show up.

I lived in the East Coast before that and didn't have as many flakers.

fatdog789• 17 years ago

It's called traffic. It can make a 10 minute commute turn into a 3-hour commute.

I lived on the East Coast for 5 years, and people there were flakier than their West Coast counterparts -- even though traffic on the East Coast is more predictable and less congested. The difference? People on the West Coast try to make their commitments -- but run in to traffic. People on the East Coast leave late and blame the traffic.

bkovitz• 17 years ago

I don't get it. Why do they need to close on a Friday night? There are a zillion DJs in San Francisco, and people often come to DNA Lounge just because it's DNA Lounge, without knowing what, if anything, special is planned that night.

geuis• 17 years ago

DNA Lounge isn't a regular bar. It's a facility. They do a variety of events ranging from concerts to wrestling. So it takes a while for them to setup for an event and properly promote it to get a decent turnout.

The other big factor is that burning man is happening around the same time which sucks a lot of the promotional people around SF out.

anigbrowl• 17 years ago

In a nutshell, it's more expensive to open the club and book bar staff, DJs, security staff etc. than they are likely to take in on that evening with other big events on and no time to promote (ads to the local newspapers have to be submitted a few weeks in advance). The number of people who go to a nightclub just because it's there is likely to be less than 1-200, and a club the size of the DNA lounge needs at least 4-500 to break even.

SwellJoe• 17 years ago

And a club that feels empty come 10 or 11 PM will remain empty all night because nobody wants to be where nothing is going on.

jawngee• 17 years ago

That's jacked. I used to be an event promoter and that kind of behavior from fellow promoters would end up harming me in some way (not being able to book a venue, extra heavy deposits, etc). Amateur at best, unprofessional completely.

On a side note, I am now blind because of the lime green on black. 1994 is calling and wants its "cyber" vibe back.

tptacek3• 17 years ago

That color scheme dates back to about:jwz, in the first version of Mozilla. =)

sketerpot• 17 years ago

If I ever find out what Project Xanadu's default color scheme was supposed to be, then I will probably switch a web site to it. In loving memory of a future that we exceeded and still failed to live up to.

(Xanadu was the first idea of a hypertext system. It was more heavyweight than the current system, which may be why it never caught on -- but it was incredibly visionary. Sometimes I read futurist writing from that time, and I'm struck by how much better we've done and by how much of its early promise we have left unfulfilled.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu

ivey• 17 years ago

And in case others missed the point, his site isn't that color in some kind of tribute...his site is that color because he's jwz, and he wrote vast swathes of Mozilla, and he can make his website any color he wants.

ivankirigin2• 17 years ago

I know the central people behind twestival, and have worked with them before. I think it is important to know how things are actually run. You have a few central people who are helping a ton of people organize meetups. This lets those at the center get great reach, and makes the global event really big. It is amazing that a global event is essentially organized by a handful of people.

Like the internet, this kind of decentralization requires relinquishing a bit of control. It is daring from a branding perspective to let locals plan events under your brand's global name.

So I wouldn't say this story is the fault of "the twestival" - but of those local SF organizers who dropped the ball.

Kaizyn• 17 years ago

Then the Twestival SF organizers are flakes, and your friends who do the central coordination need to do a better job vetting their local organizers. Otherwise, your friends will earn themselves a bad name.

ivankirigin2• 17 years ago

I agree. Lots of local organizers have been booted for various reasons. I think there are something like 150 cities. There is basically a person or two vetting the whole thing. I think that deserves respect regardless of a few bad examples.

I mean, there is money involved, and charities to donate to. That extremely sensitive issue is essentially already settled.

catch23• 17 years ago

You know, that's exactly how big companies treat bad PR. They'll just blame it on the employee, then fire the employee. The downside of Twestival is that it's all volunteers... sounds like the organizers need to man up and fire the volunteers.

bjelkeman-again• 17 years ago

The Twestival consists of hundreds of volunteers in lots of different locations. The people the I and my colleagues have worked with for four different events have so far been very professional.

eworoshow• 17 years ago

Twestival posted a response: http://sanfrancisco.twestival.com/2009/08/29/our-side-smiles...

gaius2• 17 years ago

Either they or JWZ are lying, then. I know who my money's on.

rwolf• 17 years ago

They seem much easier to reach with bad publicity.

tptacek3• 17 years ago

According to their own response, they never cancelled with DNA. All the rest of their post is irrelevant.

bravura• 17 years ago

"We admit that we made a mistake by not reaching out to the previous venue to make our decision clear before informing our internal team. We weren’t aware they were passing up other opportunities in our favour and understand the staff is not thrilled about our choice"

icey• 17 years ago

I'm sure jwz will be perfectly happy with the situation, since they were magnanimous enough to offer him free tickets to their event.

edawerd• 17 years ago

Can someone explain to me how it is that club promoters work? Back when I was living in LA, I'd meet lots of people who would tell me they're a promoter for club X, but I never understood how they fit into the business model.

gaius2• 17 years ago

The promoter is an entrepreneur, their product is the event. He or she arranges the venue, the performers, the advertising, etc and whatever's left from the door price/ticket sales once everyone's been paid is their profit.

Lots of people do this part time looking only to break even, in that case their profit is in the form of social capital.

Wherein Twestival screw us over with their egregious unprofessionalism.

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