alt.SPACE Info for Local Papers: Thoughts?

Posted June 20th, 2007 by Anna Pellecchia

Hello alt.SPACE-ers (alt.SPACE cadets?),

I was hoping to get some of your thoughts on the information we should send to local newspapers about the events coming up. Since some of the papers require a two week advance notice, Scott and I decided that we should designate Friday, July 6 (the first friday of July) as the "opening night" of sorts. So far, I've received information on event lisiting requirements for the following publications: Philadelphia Weekly, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Citypaper, The Bulletin, South Philly Review, Philadelphia Tribune, and the Philadelphia Gay News. I don't know if we're interested in all of those or not (I just looked up anything I could find), and I also don't know if there are ones I missed -- let me know either way. The information we need to submit is pretty much the same for all of the above papers:

Event Name
Address
Phone Number for Event/for Info on Event
Date
Time
Cost (this will be free)
Email (optional)
Contact Name (optional)
Short Description

Citypaper asks for a few more specific things in addition to the above:
Frequency
Venue Name
Venue City (neighborhood specific, i.e. Old City, University City, Fishtown, etc. I don't know what we're considered...)
Comments (optional)

A few of these are probably obvious, but some (the Description, in particular) require or would benefit from some planning and collective input. I know there's still a lot we're trying to figure out right now, but it would be great to have some basic information to send out in accordance with these deadlines:
Fri June 22 (Inquirer, Daily News, Tribune)
Mon June 25 (Citypaper)
Tues June 26, 5PM (Philly Weekly)
Thurs June 28, 5PM (South Philly Review)
Fri June 29 (PGN)

Sound good? Again, let me know if there's anything I'm forgetting. Sorry this post is kind of long but thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing back from you!

--Anna

let's not worry so much about press for this one

On July 7th, 2007 Scott Rigby says:

not publicising is not our usual position. But my 2 cents this time is that until we know what we're doing, we can't publicise.

This means we can always do it after each event (document well, send info afterwards, etc). The main reasons to promote in advance would be [1]. for potential advance write-ups in the press, and [2]. to get the word out to potential participants.

[1] Regarding advance Press–My thought is let's skip this for now, and focus on the events themselves–the related issues, creative research, and "alternative" approaches to the different forms of space in Philadelphia. Perhaps some of these will fail. Some might be really great.

[2] about participants–I feel the opposite way. I'd like to make these events available to as many people as possible... at least to people who are interested. So I feel we shouldn't hold back in telling people about it. (but let's make sure we know exactly when & where we're doing things before we send info out).

What do you think about posters or flyers?