Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum The *Ultimate* ABF event, would you attend?

Hey, I've got the room and a soon to be delivered 7' M&H "BB" (currently in storage}, but the twist is that we are now at our ranch in northern Arizona and the weather is cold. (8k feet elev).

We are however less than 2 hours from the endless summer of Phoenix and not far from the grand canyon so who knows!.

Well, I'd love to do it, but there's absolutely no way I'd be able to.

Great idea though!

Trust me, in my case this would not be a good idea!

Ed

I share your opinion!

That would be very cool.

East Coast I'd drive. West Coast I'd fly. There's always a conference in my field around LA, San Fran, or San José. UK I'd consider it if timed properly with a vacation. The wife and I have always wanted to visit.

San Francisco gets my vote, been there a few times and as the big man says "left my heart" there...

Cheers


Text

What if... we could finance this whole thing by making some money on the internet?

It's relatively easy to do so, especially when you have a fairly large group of enthusiastic people.

I don't have any specific ideas yet, just some experience making a living off the internet.

If we could make, let's say, $50.000 in the next year working together, we could host an nice ABF party anywhere in the world and fly everyone in for free.

This is a very good idea! It may be difficult flying to another continent, but planning a meeting in a location 'close' to your area can be a total success

I would try my best go to any city in Europe you may chose Amsterdam, London, Berlin...

So I will not have my once-in-a-lifetime big excuse to go to US then........

Ragnhild

$50.000?
I'm just going to assume that this is because of where you live. I'm American, you confuse me!

At first glance $50.000 looks like 50 bucks, until I realize what's going on.

Just my $0,02...

50 "grand" then.

But seriously, think about it:

If there was some "ABF Party Fund" with $50,000 bucks in it, free to spend, wouldn't you accept an invitation to come to a party in San Fransisco with all your ABF friends, all expenses paid?

And by that I mean, roundtrip ticket for you and a guest (wherever you are in the world), one or two nights in a hotel, and plenty of food and drinks during the day?

I'm thinking a one or two-day event here, including a live recital of everyone willing to participate.

The more I think about it, the more fun it sounds!

Wouldn't you come?

I would definitely *want* to attend such a momentous event... but I'm guessing Life and Pragmatics would get in the way. Talking my family into making an AB recital our yearly vacation would be, I think, a tough sell. Going by myself would be possible, but it would depend on the time of year and my teaching schedule and how guilty I'd feel about leaving the kids.

So I guess I would say I love the idea in abstract but am somewhat doubtful about whether I'd actually feel able to go.

Well, I'd certainly come... if you can get the money. Remember, I'm just 14!

In fact, have it in NYC. That way you won't need to fly me out.

Hmm, mahlzeit, I wonder how would you get 50 000 dollars?

Aha! Finally, someone represented 50k in a way that I like!

Perhaps he could go around automating recitals?

I knew someone was going to ask this, but getting the money is not the point.

The real question is: do people want to attend an awesome party, for free, even if it means flying to the other end of the world? And are people willing to put in some work to make that happen?

If the answer to those questions is YES! then making 50K is just one of the problems to tackle. Handling the logistics of everything is probably a worse problem.

But to answer your question: You create money by providing something of value. First you create something of value, then you show it to the right people, and they will give you money in exchange for it.

The advantage of the internet is that you can do this with very low startup costs and overhead.

You basically set up a web site and a mailing list, then get as many potential customers as possible on the mailing list. Then you sell your products to these people.

The fact that people are on your mailing list means that they are interested in what you have to say and that they give you permission to market your products (or even other peoples' products) to them. To get and keep customers on your list, you provide relevant stuff for free on a regular basis (things of real value, not fluff).

One obvious line of products, for us, is (e)books about learning to play the piano. There is an enormous wealth of information in the archives of the ABF (and in the other Piano World forums). We could extract this information and put it in several downloadable books or CD's. I have no doubt that some of this stuff could rival (or even better, complement) other piano courses on the web.

This is just one possibility, there are many others.

The only thing it takes is time. If, let's say, 10 good ABF people volunteer to do this, then no one has to make a large time commitment and we can all still play the piano in our spare time.

So here's the answer to question where we would get 50,000 dollars: we convert our time and energy into 50,000 dollars. In other words, we make 50,000 dollars.

Now, if you have a 40-hour-a-week job and you don't make anything near that you might be thinking: "yeah, right". Believe me, there are plenty of people on the internet making a VERY comfortable living selling information products this way. MUCH more comfortable than 50K...

Of course this is a crazy idea, but I like my ideas crazy.

Seriously, that sounds quite interesting. If you're actually going to attempt some type of moneymaking for this, I'd be more than willing to help.

Does anyone have any potential dates in mind for this live recital?

First off, a quick note on money making.

Earning a bunch of money(legally) is extremely easy to do in a group setting. I can remember a few years back when Mrs Hunky and I were coaching the local swim team in town. We had 150 little "salesmen" available to us.

In just one weekend of fund raising, we made enough money to pay for everyones suits, goggles, swim bags, team towels as well as buy new lane lines for $10k and new starting blocks for $5k.
We literally had to think of things to buy for the team as we could'nt keep the money personally.

Back in junior high school, I went around selling pencils door to door for $1. I would ring peoples door bell and ask if they would like to buy a nice pencil for $1. Of course, they would always ask why and I would tell them that I would like to make enough money to buy a used car for high school in a couple of years.

The succses rate of my pencil selling was just about 100%!. Almost everybody bought one!. After about 3-4 hours of going door to door, I would bring home around $200 and remember, I was just a 15 year old kid back in the early 80's!.

After only a couple of months, I made enough loot to buy my dream car....a 1979 VW Rabbit..."Diesel"!!...Woo-hoo!!.

Anyway, the point is money should NOT be a reason to not participate as if we all got together as a group, the cash can easily be made.

I'm more interested if our ABF members would *seriously* consider participating in an actual formal real recital. You know, a nice concert setting with a REAL concert grand piano to perform on.

Some of us may have some built up frequent flyer miles that they can use. Others may just be looking for an excuse to take a vacation to a warmer or coder climate. I know I personally would love to meet some of our members personally and finally put a face to a name.

The chance to perform in front of a live audience in a real concert setting on a real concert grand may also be a once in a lifetime opportunity for some as well.

The logistics of doing this are very realistic so long as a location and date are chosen WELL in advance and are acceptable for most of us.

I still think (if there is any real interest of doing this) that we chose a location that can be turned into a vacation to justify the travel and time. Bring the spouse and kids!. One evening is dedicated to the live recital, the rest of your time can be Disneyland, Las Vegas or whatever/wherever!.

So, is there any REAL interest in doing this or are we forever stuck at our desks behind our monitors just dreaming what it would be like to perform at a concert hall in a real recital setting?. This could be our chance!.