Publicity

An interesting sidebar to the 25th anniversary happening tonight. I made two major publicity mailings, in late October and mid November, to our local papers, off and online, sending fliers both to individual arts reporters and special areas like Calendar sections. From all of this, as near as I can tell, the event was mentioned in only four resources: on the Soapstone email newsletter; on the PSU Currently newsletter; on the stage play openings calendar (which it is not) of The Oregonian; and in Bob Hicks' arts blog, with a long and generous piece putting the event in historical context. Nothing in Willamette Week or the Portland Tribune, which doesn't surprise me: it shocks me.

But it's definitely interesting, from a local cultural point of view. There must be young artists in town pulling out their hair, trying to get publicity for their events. I thought something would be mentioned as a matter of course, especially online where it costs no one anything. Apparently not. Unless there are a lot of incompetent employees out there who can't keep track of things.

For my event, none of this matters one way or the other since Hicks now has covered the bases. I admit disappointment that more interest wasn't shown by the major media but memories are short and all that. But, thanks to Hicks, there's a record now. We can be Googled now ha ha. This event isn't going to disappear unnoticed, no matter how many show up.

From the beginning, I hoped the event could be a celebration among those who made it happen. It remains to be seen how many will show up. Some have passed, I know, but it would be great if a few showed up. We'll see. I'll have a ball in any case.