The big one, the final meeting before the exhibition! The meeting was fairly straight forward, paying back money out of our sponsorship to anyone who has used their own money, sorting out who would be printing the t-shirts. With a week till our exhibition, it was becoming 'real' and we needed this last little elements to bring it all together.
Visitor Book is key for the opening night so we can get lots of feedback on the exhibition, providing us with thoughts on what they liked, what could be improved etc. Noemie has taken money from sponsorhsip and will be heading to Paperchase to pick up a lovely book for us.
T-shirts have to be printed this week, a little last minute but still do able. We have decided to purchase our own black t-shirts in whatever style we want and to meet at 1.30 on Monday at Eldon to hand them to Jess and Lauren who will then head off to Brilens to book in a time to print. I've managed to organise with Alice to pick up my black top from work as I can't get away in time.
Our Posters will be on display in Fratton station this week. After much persistence from Becky, she managed to get hold of the manager of Fratton train station who has agreed to display our posters for the coming weeks.
Wall space has become a bit of issue again with some people changing their mind about where they are going without informing the group. We decided the best way to do it was a simple hand vote, voting for which wall you wanted to be on. Luckily some people weren't particularly bothered and in the end we found that wall space shouldn't be an issue. We worked out we would have one person on the grey wall (Lauren's prison photographs needed to be on this background to suit her photographs), four people on the white/graffiti wall and nine of us on the green wall. Sophie would also have her projection screen to display her shadow images and this could easily be placed on the day. The white/graffiti wall is going to be covered in cotton drill material as it is fairly thick and heavy so it will cover the graffiti and be able to support anything hung on it without costing a huge amount (roughly £5 a meter). In case of any issues with wall space, we have decided to meet at Bonzo at 10am on the opening night (9th December) to allow plenty of time to reorganise if needed and to overcome any hanging problems.
Health and Safety is obviously important so we have decided to have a rota to cover the doors, food, drink stalls etc so that there is some control over all areas. Having someone on the drink stall is particularly important in order not to provide any under-aged with alcohol. We have also agreed to all do are part in keeping Bonzo tidy during the opening night, tidying up as the night progresses and all helping out at the end.
Alice is still keen to perform at the opening night, looking to start singing at half 6 till 7. Her brother has also offered to play guitar in the background for a period of time.
Zoe mentioned at the beginning of our planning about possibly having a time lapse or video of our opening night to allow us to share the experience with anyone who couldn't come while also acting as publicity for people to come down to the exhibition during the following week. Nik from Yatta has again offered his services, to come down on the day to create a time lapse of us setting up and the opening night itself. This will mean that we can focus on our exhibition while Nik documents it. Fantastic!
Business cards, there will be lots! We are each going to bring business cards to the exhibition and place them on one of Bonzo's 'hot desks' so that it is possible for the visitors to get hold of us or to get more information on websites etc.
Food and drink was our last point of the meeting. Katy, Zoe and Jess were left in charge of the shopping and were given a budget of £50 to get everything we would need. We created a rough list of things to get, trying to cater to everyone, looking at getting red and white wine, lemonade, coca cola, snack food of some kind (getting something suitable for vegetarians too) as well as disposable plates, cups and bin bags. They decided to head off on Wednesday evening to do their shop and store everything at Zoe's as she lives just down the road from Bonzo.
Everyone has their last little jobs to do and by 6pm Wednesday we will be opening 14m2 to the public. Exciting is an understatement.