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Playing For a Cure
Saturday,
September 29th, 2007
6-10 pm, at the Balcony
116 E High St., Oxford, OH
Family weekend
ALL PROCEEDS BENEFIT THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY!
All set times were approximate:
Blues Phoenix 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Ryan Troescher 7:45 pm - 8:15 pm
Justin Wagner 8:20 pm - 8:40 pm
Mission Man 8:55 pm - 10:00 pm
Playing For a Cure raised $147 for the American Cancer Society
 I want to start off by thanking everyone who helped promote this event. I sincerely appreciate it. The Oxford Press wrote a wonderful article on the event, and it can be found here. The Miami Student published an article after the show, which is absolutely fantastic, and you can read it here! 94.9, the Sound listed the event on its website on very short notice. The link was thre, but is gone now becasue the event is over. Special thanks to the Balcony for hosting the event on family weekend. Thank you Blues Phoenix, Ryan Troescher, Justin Wagner, and everyone else who helped make the event a success!
The turnout was much less than I had expected or hoped for, but the people who were there made the show a tremendous amount of fun! Pictures and video will be added soon. The pictures will come sooner than the video because it was recorded on 8mm tape, and will take some time to convert to digital form. I had a different outfit for each song, and changing clothes on stage was fun. I reserve the outfit changes specifically for Playing For a Cure, just to add another element to this very important event.
I think the most important thing I took away from the event this year is the fact that I'm doing what I'm meant to do. I'm meant to be a musician. I'm meant to keep pursuing music as my career. In the past, the lack of turnout may have taken away from the energy of my performance because I would have been disappointed. I've learned, though, that problems will always arise. The opening band's guitarist had pneumonia, and we had some other technical difficulties, but those always come up at shows. It's not even a matter of playing through those difficulties. It's completely forgetting about those things, and giving everything of myself to my performance. It's better for the fans, and for myself. I love where I am now in my life, and where I'm at musically.
Now in its fourth year, Playing For a Cure is still far and away the most important event of the year for me. During my first year, I really reflected on the loss of my mom a lot, which helped me deal with things that I would not have otherwise dealt with. It was a wonderfully healthy experience for me. Because of that, this event is more like New Years to me than January 1st is. It's my day to look back at the past year, and move onto the next one. More importantly, it's the day that is the culmination of months of planning, promoting, and practicing turning into a donation to the American Cancer Society. It's also a measure of how stubborn I am. In year 1, I spent over $1,000 promoting it. Unfortunately, not even enough people paid to cover the sound guy, so there was no donation. I learned from that event, though. I learned how to have a more successful event, and it's not in me to give up on something that's truly important to me, and finding a cure for cancer is the biggest thing I hope to see happen in my lifetime. The second year, I spent a little over $400 promoting the event. Door receipts were $216, and I sold two t-shirts (for $26 total), for a total of $242. Instead of reimbursing myself, I donated $250 to the American Cancer Society. Year 3, I spent about $150 promoting the event, and it took in $260, so I donated all $260. When I say all proceeds benefit the American Cancer Society, I mean all. I did not reimburse myself for marketing expenses, such as running facebook ads, printing flyers, and burning CDs. Those expenses came out of my pocket because I wanted the ACS to get the largest donation possible.
Love,
Gary
Back to MissionMan.net
Or read about last year's event
There will be video, pictures, and a summary of the event here in the days and weeks following the event, so come back to MissionMan.net often for that stuff.
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