Budgeting and venue screw up

OPTIONS:
1. We pay 12K - to ensure we meet this money we may have to increase ticket sales. 15 euro presale and 20 euro on the door and we would have a no commerce event.
2. We turn it into a commerce event. 60/40 door split, make entrance prices cheaper and you buy drinks inside
Can you think of other ideas on how we do this?

Other ideas
3. We could give 100% of the door to Anomolie and take 1000euro for Art grants (or use any money left over from dreams at KB) and we may be able to have a no commerce event.

1. Another idea is that we build a bar tab using the money we make on the door :laughing:

Does it make sense / is there a correct way to ask the community if they'd be willing to pay more for a BYO event in burner spirit? What is the time frame to make a decision and report back to Anomalie?

I am completely up for with the Option 1.
Making a no-money event of that scale is what we can make really special and what motivates me. And also probably the reason why Anomalie sounded like a good option at first place.

I think raising the price of a ticket to a range of 12-20€, where you know that you won't pay at the bar inside is completely fair. It will be important to communicate clearly why our event costs 15€+ and that no benefits will be generated from it. Aiming at break-even.

With 12K€ rent, there is a risk of ending the event negative (I would say the risk is quite small). So the worst cast is that with being negative on that event, we would need to balance with some other very beneficial events we made before.
Let's take that risk, and create a special event :hugging:

I would say price 20-25 for BYO event with workshops and a few stages is not a lot, they charge 15 at any club and then drinks at bar are not that cheap. Considering this BYO event is more inclusive for students and people on a tight budget - because with a cheaper ticket a person would pay overall more if they take one or two drinks at the bar. I think BYO is a huge catch, for both burners and people that are not part of the community, because it's something new and from reaction of my friends I see huge interest. The only worry is that we don't get 1000-1200 people but I'm optimistic, especially if it will be in a burner non commercial style - the more burn stuff we put (so workshops, effigy and so on) the more people will come to relieve their burns in city conditions :)

I think one important question to ask is how much leverage we have at the door of Anomalie when we pay the 12K. Do we need to organize our own security? How closely can we work with them? If we have a BYO event it is crucial for us to balance between normal guests and burners.

Its berlin and i think 15-20 euro on the door is plenty. 25 euro and well be tipping into something too expensive.
I have expressed we want security on the door for our event

i was wondering the 12k, is this for 24 hours and why is it so expensive? My buddy from Tanz im Zenith just made a 4,5k deal with Renate for 48 hours all-in for a commercial event with 100% doorsales. Hey got a "friends price" but still for me its a unreal difference since Renate is a kapitalistik money machine. I mean, yes it would be great to do something in Anomalie, but if you ask me we should look for other options. Maybe Anomalie wants to negotiate wenn we bluff with the renate price and use the fact that they are not a very well known club att the moment. Its also good for them wenn a big community like us wants to do more partys there in the future so they could be softer with the price.

Plus i guess a non profit event shouldn´t be overpriced it looks wrong in my eyes, especially wenn you compare it to the ticket price for 4 days Kiezburn. It demotivates people to come (me included) even if the drinks are for free, we also want want poor people on the dancefloor ;) don´t we.

@erinjeavonsfellows Shall i asked the contact from my buddy for Renate, i think its worth the try, especially with knowing a price they gave to someone else.

Well yes ofcourse it makes a huge difference and in Renate they will never give the bar away. So Renate is not an option in the no money idea.

Im just putting in some ideas because i realy think that we need a couple of more events to do such a beautifull, but also verry ambitious event like this. Because, dont get me wrong i love the idea off a "no money in a club night", but what if only 500 people show up? I have some expirience with making events in Berlin, you need a steady base from people you know they will show up. We kinda have this but i think not up to 1000/1200 like secure, also the last b&b party was also with a little fewer people than wat was expected if i remember correctly. I guess we need to work our way up to this point of having no money bars and take small steps but thats not to me.

By the way Renate is not an option this time trough my buddys contact, he just told me their standart price is 15k a day, i guess he knows the guy realy well. But my buddy wanted to inroduce me to the right guy this month. Might be intressting for the future to fundrase ;).

I think if we do a pre-sale for 15 euros and emphasize hard enough this will be the people only expense (unless they buy alcohol to bring to the event which they will but it will be significantly cheaper) We can pull this off completely. i am attending a party new york called misfit burn and what they did is they put early bird tickets of different prices and also an option to buy a more expensive tickets if you want to support. its a long shot because we are poor berliner but why not try? the earlier we have the tickets website the sooner we can collect the money and decide. what do you say?

I think it's good idea. Pre sales is the best way to get a feeling about the amount people we can gather.
It will help to decide what should be (a) art grants (b) money spent on event orga(potential drinks, deco,..) and most importantly (c) price at the door.

After talking so much about the BYO concept, I'm sure I'm not the only one who wont go fo anything else... :)

Also very much into the pre-sales and sliding scale ideas! I'd push for a low income ticket of 10-15€ at max. The kind of events I (and most of the ppl I know) go to are never over that amount and either you are indeed allow to bring drinks from the outside or they cost 1,50-2€. Just to put a bit of perspective on the inclusion topic.
Early-bird tickets could be 15-20€ and the normal 20-25€.

And what could be the distribution of them? Maybe around 200 low income tickets - 300 early bird ones - 500+ normal? (20%-30%-50%) More suggestions?

Btw, I already reached to @kris to help them out with the ticketing, so we can have the pre-sale. More news after BM..

Another thing: I know the focus and goal is to get enough ppl there, but, is there a maximum amount that Gate should be aware of?

Who has time to contact Musikbrauerei as an alternative. I“ve heard the rent is only 2,5 k. I don“t know if it“s possible to run the bar. But it’s worth a try. I“m in Reno so I cannot do it...

I have no experince with Anomalie. it is out of gold in a west berlin 70ies party castle? But 12k seems way way to much. I do not think, that more than 500 people will come.. Is Anomalie your only option, or would you also go with Kitkat or
https://www.facebook.com/Humboldthain.Club/ or
https://www.facebook.com/zku.berlin/
https://www.facebook.com/Mensch-Meier-243748706006277/
https://www.facebook.com/heidegluehen/
https://www.facebook.com/KulturbotschaftLichtenberg
https://www.facebook.com/silentgreenkulturquartier/
https://www.facebook.com/griessmuehle/
https://kaosberlin.de/
..

Do we have numbers from the last event at B&B? How many burners and burner friends came? and how many were "street traffic"? I have not heard of anomalie before (6 years of raving in Berlin) and have a feeling most "street traffic" there would not be of the kind that burn the same way as the Kiez community...? Radical exclusion is sometimes necessary - when it comes to clubs in Berlin. And would we have a 1000 burners there, if the whole Kiezburn was 700- with people coming from all over? I also can't help thinking that 12k is a lot of money to spend to have a BYO mini-burn? Is it just me? If we are doing this, yes, let's spend the money, but could it maybe go to a location or a club that does social work? Like Mensch Meier (next door)? Or maybe there are others? You know, people who do raves to "AFD wegbassen"? Maybe it's ok to spend money in their bar rather than having BYO then? Also, I think Owl/Holger is doing some work to get some spaces in the Haus Der Statistik? Maybe there is a way to support them - and focus more on workshops and community and less on raving? Or at least, quieter raving? :p I know I am late in the game and you guys have done a lot of legwork (thank you, awesome, tireless humans) already, but maybe just maybe there is a way to steer this awesome enterprise in a more sustainable direction?

12k is alot in comparison to other venues, including that of our previous venue B&B.
The guys from anomolie are super slow in getting back to me and its starting to concern me. Also he is a friend of mine so I dont have the confidence to negotiate teh way someone else would. Does someone else want to take over?
When we were discussing locations there was not alot of help or input from the wider community. IT basically came down to doing it at birgit again or Anomolie with the earlier conditions.... naturally we selected Anomolie. If people have other ways to help us out or connections at anomolie that can get us more leverage, please contact us.

And yes we need to consider what happens in the rare case we don't reach 12k? who pays anomolie and whats our plan to pay people back?

Sorry for not contributing earlier to this discussion as the finance lead (was busy at CCC camp). Anyway, all this also makes me starting to feel a bit uneasy, the old deal was a comparably riskless choice, but starting into it with basically a 12k debt which we might have to overcome with heavy marketing and high ticket prices (maybe not having been involved in organizing the previous events I'm irrationally distrustful of the potential for a high number of well-paying visitors) makes the whole thing feel quite different to me, and not necessarily less commercial than a "buy drinks at the bar" event. BYOB may be an important ingredient of a "proper" burn, but I assume that the same can be said for not having to worry much about how to generate a high monetary income (!= profit). Burns obviously can be expensive, but I guess the worries about the costs can be reduced by events having grown established and popular, and trust in event conditions such as the venue. The difficulties @erinjeavonsfellows indicates about communicating with Anomalie don't give me comfort in that regard …

Hey! Just caught up with all this chat after being away all weekend. As I hopped in a little later I have no particular attachment to the club Anomolie and think the concerns raised around the price (which does seem rather high) and the difficulties in communication/come to an agreement. If we are thinking of alternatives I also would be drawn more to Mensch Meier as an option but without a clear idea of costs it is hard to say for sure. Should I enquire as to their price? I know they have worked with friends of mine who use the space for fundraising for Entropie festival. :)

I guess an alternative option might be to fine a more broad events space that doesn't function solely as a bar/club and would not have such a need to bring in bar money which would keep the BYO option open.

After thinking about stuff over the weekend I also kinda grew more and more uncertain.

I have to say, and don't get me wrong, I got more and more upset about the behavior of the venue und start to doubt it is a good idea for me to colead an event in which I have such icky feelings.

I feel very uneasy around the fact that we confirmed several facts several times and even delivered written proof of prenegotiated terms. Now, as we have already rolled up the drums and made some noise about our amazing event, they come back and change the terms. I have no idea how negotiation and talks went @erinjeavonsfellows but I would expect at least a major apology for behaving in such an unprofessional way.

Bottom line: I am feeling increasingly more uncomfortable working with Anomalie as a venue. Not because I am afraid we'll not pull enough people (which is a considerable risk, but I feel 50/50 about it). I'd be all in for taking the risk, as long as Kiez Burn finance lead and the general opinion is that we can afford risking going in the reds a bit with this event.

I feel icky because I think good communication with the venue is key and so far the communication has been proven to be dangerously unclear.

Understand totally. And my most recent note to them reflects this. Its bullshit. I had a list of conditions and now they are changing it.
Who can help with finding another venue

I think there are kind of 2 topics here : (1) the cost for renting the venue and (2) the venue itself.

About the cost, To me, 12k in absolute value doesn't mean much. The important thing is whether we believe we can cover those costs with the door, and organize an event without losing money. I believe yes (cf. discussion about ticket/pre sales/ we had before). Although it would be good to have a kind of benchmark, to know if 12k is really way too high for comparable venues in Berlin with the same deal

About the venue itself, I think that's the most problematic point. The communication doesn't seem to work with them, and with their behaviour, we can already anticipate other problem/misunderstanding on the way..
Ideally, I would also be more keen on venues like Mensch or KAOS.

Overall, organizing a big event with BYO concept will come with a financial risk. Even if we find a cheaper deal than 12k, the risk will always be there.

The event is already broadly communicated with almost 2k people interested. People will start to plan their weekend, book flights, train, etc.. We should try to quickly (next week maximum) answer those 2 questions :
- What is the maximum financial risk are we ok to take ? (if 12k seems too high for most of this thread) And how do we calculate that maximum risk?
- Are we clearly saying NO to Anomalie, as we don't feel comfortable working with them? If yes, do we have an alternative?

Ok Anomolie have returned by cutting the deal by 2k. Making it ~10k for the hiring of the venue. 20 euro each we would just need 500people through the door which i personally think we can do. It seemed that we may be able to lower to 9 with some push but i dont know...
This will give us full control over the venue and have a no commerce event.

IMO we should collect all the alternative options and Anomalie evaluations by others that we can find until the meeting next week, and then vote on the way forward there.

Just need some informations like for how big the venue has to be ( for how many people) and what are the other requirements ( not too touristic, in the city...etc) then i will check. have a nice day

HI my lovely fellow burners...
I m a bit shocked by the enormous price anomalie is asking as a rent.
I host my own parties at Ava Club (shitty reputation to be honest, yet good soundsystem and a good contact with the owner) they have two rooms and defenitely can hold up to 700 people. Max 1000
If by any chance you amazing people want another location(most likely without any investement except promotion) I‘d be more then happy to introduce you to the owner and get ya the venue.
Greets, beats and hugs
Wiebe

I honestly believe we can cover the 10k on the night with door sales.
We can very well change the venue... Im not sure how confident we are changing the venue and starting over with 5 weeks to go. Some thing to bring up in the meeting next week.

Hm did you delete my comments here...?

Ok sorry if I did something wrong but please tell me ( maybe via pm) & that you guys are quite sure with your decision and that I dont have to ask venues anymore. I am very busy in the moment but still wanted to help with a better venue....

Tonight we took a vote and decided to proceed with Anomalie. I will be working with the venue to get the contract going which I will post here when ready. We are aware of the risk but feel this wont be an issue. We believe we can make the full 10k that would cover the cost of hiring the venue. GO TEAM!

I am assuming that the deal you are mentioning here includes Renate running the bar themselves? That makes a huge difference..

Yes, that's what I think.
And the latest comments I have seen going into the direction of a 15 to 25€ ticket would actually reduce the risk a lot. Almost to none.

At 20€ average, we would break even with 600 people.

Exactly that. Usually events are less pricy if you just host and the venue keeps the bar. If you ask Renate, you'd need to ask for the same conditions: BYO event, no commercial bar.

Maybe not 100%, but yeah maybe haggle that we give them a bigger cut on the door for making it Byo. Otherwise we should raise the prices, 20€ or 25€ is totally ok if you can bring your own drinks(Would say 25 at door, 20 presale, 15 low income pre-sale).
Anybody has any experience about prices at some of the other who where BYO for reference? Saw that the guys in Vienna had a three tier ticket working class(you help out in any way), visitor(you just come and enjoy party) and oligarch (you pay a little bit more to finance cooler art). Unfortunately saw no info how much each ticket was going for or if they where BYO.

EDIT: The opinion voiced below changed over the coruse of a couple of days. I feel icky about Anomalie. See here: https://talk.kiezburn.org/d/IL2aASyF/budgeting-and-venue-screw-up/39

I think raising the ticket price is an option. maybe ticketing can also add the option to donate more.
I think it is important to stress that the lack of a commercial drink bar means an overall saving in drinks and expenses for most people coming.

If the whole event looks a lot like a burn (because of the following of the 10 principles) I do think that paying 1/4 of the price of a normal KB ticket at the door is not too much at all.

I would vouch for offering a low income option for tickets.

Maybe go for an early-early-bird pricing option at 12 Euros for people who are willing to already commit to the event during the first weeks of september. This includes ALL leads, volunteers & co.

This is all suggestions for ticketing. And as I am not doing ticketing, it is exactly that: Suggestions to maybe handle the uncertainty.

Also I am biased, because the BYO idea is the point which excites me personally the most.

hey @erinjeavonsfellows I understand your frustration - and thank you for your work so far! It is appreciated! My personal feeling on the matter is that a club decompression (as in B&B) does not bring much value to the community and as you rightly observe just does not have the right vibe. At the same time a large club takeover and 12k sounds over-ambitious for our rather small local community. I am wondering if it would be a good idea to involve more people in the decision and proceed accordingly? I personally think that smaller is sweeter (and risk-free) - what is wrong with a smaller, cosier event that does not require a large capacity and huge investment? Like the Musotopia event, for example, that could have welcomed way more people in the space? Or Beate Uwe stuff? Again, personal opinion, but I would welcome a departure from raving and investigate more community-building aspects. why not a conference (see Holger's post above) as a decom? But, these are questions that throw us straight back to the drawing board of course. To finish the long post, I do not clearly see that there is a 1000 souls in our community burning for a decom (and willing to pay the price) in a club - private or not. We have to serve our audience - the KB and larger burner community - as well as promote burner spirit IRL with this event. Does the current plan do the job?

Ah, about helping with the ticket: I wanted to write it down in the threat where I read about Kris wanting to guide someone, but couldn't find it; and then edit the Decompression Description to add me as ticket co-lead or sth, but cannot either :upside_down:

What was the feedback from your email where you send him our earlier agreement? Did they respond to that in any way?

Agree with you in some cases here! Would have been good to have these ideas and participation in our early meetings. Barely anyone came so we voted. Anomolie won the vote. We also talked of a smaller decompression but also voted out by the people who attended the meeting.

1000 people through the door. no stats on street vs burner traffic although the street traffic was quite high which is why we wanted to move the event. The goal of moving it to anomolie is that it would minimise street traffic and make a destination event.

i just saw, that you already have date in mind, in a few weeks. if you can't find anything else, raise the ticket prices, but please don't support Anomalie more than necessary with a ongoing party partnership. the facebook reviews about it smells like old fish. there are a lot of locations that you can probably can have for a weekend for 12k.

@kikukimura We will be doing a vote on Wednesday at the Burn Night meeting to discuss all these things. if we vote against this, then we will need assistance with venues. Until then, its on hold.

thank you @holgerwessels for swift response! I personally love the idea of a smaller, cosier and more conferency decompression than a more conventional rave that I (personally) do not think helps us keep the community closer, engaged and inspired? was there any traction within the community on changing the nature of our decom?

This is separate from the verein. Im now trying to negotiate a better deal with anomolie. Nothing is confirmed yet. We will vote in the next meeting about what to do.

Hi Alina, Henrik already asked if it‘s possible to do a quieter decompression at the Haus der Statistik, and there are some difficulties, especially that fire restrictions only allow 200 people in the building, and noise in the night poses a big risk for the whole project there. So the Haus der Statistik would be suitable for a Burner conference with <200 participants, but not for a large decompression, I think.

hi @britzmaster do you have a contact there for us please?

Tax on ticket sales if we do presales. Not cash on the door right?

Kaos is a really interesting venue idea for maybe a slightly more blank slate option to create the party at, also there are definitely burners already using the space for making art ;)

Ah okay, that's a shame. Let's hope for a better deal with them otherwise the list posted above has some good options and I would be happy to contact some venues in the case that we fall through with a deal. :)

We cant do mensch. They have an event. Anomolie are returning to me tomorrow with some kind of better deal. Lets review then.
If its not better, I suggest we find another venue fast or we cancel the event.

Hey sorry for contributing not earlier- quite busy with Festivals this summer. I did an event with some people 2 years ago in Anomalie when it just opened and the experience was not good at all. The pressure to get enough entrance was too high and yes the negotiation was very bad. We had even reach a Barmindestumsatz of 3500 € (!) in addition on a Thursday. The communiation was also very chewy. As an project of the university and thanks to some powerful people from the berliner scene in the back we didtn't have to pay this unreachable sum. I thought maybe they changed, but after reading all this i don't think so. I will see if i can also find a nicer venue

More like 600 people if we assume 19% tax on ticket sales (and 800 people if we assume 15€ ticket price, or 1000 people if 12€ ticket price) , but yeah, this does take some pressure off. (Any further 1000€ we want to make, for art grants for example, raises the number of tickets to sell by 60-100 people with the above ticket price range.) We still need an emergency plan for if for some reason we don't make the necessary income.

I understand now. It's a separate enterprise. Thank you Erin! And I hope there is a way forward where you are not putting your neck (financially speaking) on the line! <3

Anomalie is calling me back tomorrow about us giving more to them on the door. We can def ask the community what they would be prepared to pay for a no-commerce event. Maybe its a simple question like this without jumping into the whole saga of this?

so youre saying option 1: Pay the 12k and take the risk
So 800 people at 20€ per head would cover costs and give 960€ for the dreams budget

I think this is a question big enough to be considered/voted on as a community. Who takes the risk here/signs the event contract? The KB Verein? Then it should be voted on by the Verein first.

I am about to leave the house, but maybe @tamarregev could set up a google form with the question & post it to the event?

'Barometer of burner opinions'

I will try to do it when I get home later, but that might be way too late if Anomalie calls in tomorrow.

If we sell 400 tickets presale at 15 euro, AND get 400 tickets on the door at 20 eur, then we don't quite cover the costs of the venue. Alex bought up a point that we have tax to pay on the entrance tickets, DEFINITELY for the presale tickets (making them worth 12.19€).