Pick Up the Pieces - or - Rolling in the Deep

from Planetaria Obscura October 2016 issue

 Pick up the Pieces!

I already have ALL that.  I have it ALL.   Its just a matter of putting the puzzle together.  They can leave with memories of all that.  They can leave with cheap prizes and handouts.  They can leave with URLS of the videos of what I’m doing - they can pull them up during the show on their phones if they want to, who cares.   I loved the little kid shows I used to do because they were elbowing each other, they were asking for the pointer, they were over talking each other.  It was busy, it was hubris to be sure - but when they were gone, you felt like something had HAPPENED there.  Like after my barn parties of another era, I loved feeling how the room felt after they were gone.   We had some funn.   My spellchecker is getting tired of that misspelling.  Too bad!   Funn  funn  funn

 Now Set Sail

So I need to put all of this into one show - and its all just sitting around - there’s probably a kitchen sink I can throw in somewhere.   Rather than individual shows on different topics, I’m just going to shoot one shotgun shell into the air with all the bb’s I’ve got.  Its an approach.  Sort of like why we keep rereading favorite books, I’d go for repeat business to experience the same thing again. But mainly I’d hope they’d tell somebody else to check it out.  At least if I only get one shot at a person, I gave them everything I had to give them.  I gave it all away.   Not the only approach surely. But mine.
They CAN have it all.

Rolling in the Deep. 

Combo-Licious or Cheeseburgers Are Easy!

 From Planetaria Obscura October 2016 issue  

 Combo Licious
     
 Rod Serling had his combo - his triple threat - his sight sound and mind .. In the PZ…  a combo was synergy, it left you feeling like you’d had MORE than just a burger and fries. . You had it all, and that’s a powerful concept.  Adele sings the ultimate lament - we could have had it ALL ..   The ultimate demand has always been .. I want it all .. And I want it now!   What do you want on that? EVERYTHING.  My potato?  LOADED.  The works.  It’s a powerful powerful message. So I want to say to people - planetariums mean so much to me - and I want you to have it ALL (in the next 30 minutes).   I want to give them a buffet table of memories. If I charge (and I think I will), I want to give them perceived value.  Used to be you went to a game, you came back with not just the game, you had a scorecard, a pennant, peanuts, hot dogs, you had it ALL.  Never mind what that would cost today!  I went to the Smokies, I came back with a cedar box and postcards.  You come to my planetarium, you’re leaving with a bunch of things.  A combo.  Of sight sound and mind.  Great concept.  How to do it???

 Cheeseburgers are Easy

 I have the main course, the cheeseburger - the basic show, the basic sights, sounds, and mind expanding questions.  I’ve gotten that far. How to package and deliver them so that people come away thinking they had funn and got it all.  I think I need an introduction that Twilight Zones them - I need a multi faceted delivery that consists of live lecture, recorded features, and a live dramatization. Shakespeare knew it - go into a tragedy like A Winters Tale and find a bunch of vaudeville in the middle - you have to educate AND entertain.  I wanted to capture it all and give it all away - I wanted the thrill of ending a rock concert with bright white lights ..  I wanted classical quotes.   I wanted the ability to laugh, at some of the material, I wanted the ability to interrupt and laugh at myself on tape.   I wanted to send people home with cedar boxes and post cards and pennants and scorecards so they felt like they got value. They got entertained along with their education and inspiration.  They saw sights, they heard sounds, they expanded their minds a little.  That wouldn’t be too hard for a guy sitting in a shed he built. Would it? 

Set That Tone!

Fromt Planetaria Obscura October 2016 issue

 Set that Tone!

I had never thought for 2 seconds about how to OPEN a planetarium show, other than - HELLO.  Good afternoon!

But then I started thinking that an overall vibe was established from the get-go.  So in Halloween month, I turned to the master - Uncle Rod.  How did he start?   Well he had utterly iconic music, but then he described what was happening… you’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind.   Those words were utterly hypnotic.  They drew you in so firmly you could literally not look away.

Hi I’m Gary, and this is my barn! Wasn’t going to have quite the same effect was it.  

I needed a grabber.

Nobody grabbed like this.

Ever.

What could I learn from it.

Hmm

What REALLY Drives 'word of mouth' for your Planetarium?

(from Planetaria Obscura September 2016)

First Unload Baggage Please
     
I’ve carried around baggage in my home planetarium career - time to unload it out of the boot (British for trunk).   What baggage, as it applies to what people will remember about visiting my planetarium?  What semi myths do I cling to?   Well, there’s ‘I’m now inspired to take up amateur astronomy’!   Probably not.  Gone I think are the days when an Edmund catalog arriving at the house set off a lifelong passion.  Then there’s  ‘I’m going out TONIGHT and see all these constellations!  No, the city of Gallatin isn’t turning off its zillion lights tonight for you.   Finally there’s ‘I learned SO MUCH about stellar evolution, I’m changing my future major! ’ Not so much, being like school probably isn’t going to resonate.   All these things of course are POSSIBLE - I had the little girl one time who wanted to direct NASA some day.  But clinging to these as my major take-aways isn’t going to get word of mouth going.  I think I need to consult the Beatles.  A little help from my friends.

What Can’t Money Buy?
             
Money can‘t buy me love?  True, but that’s another newsletter entirely.   What can’t money or equipment or lectures or information or any manner of delivery buy?  FUN is the one thing that money cant buy.  After I saw Episode IV in 77 it was so much fun I HAD TO TELL EVERYONE.   After I took a crazy picture that was so much fun to  look at and produce, I HAD TO PUT IT ON FACEBOOK.    …..  When anything happens that causes fun, be it a book, a movie, a video, a show, an experience, a game -   I submit that it’s the fun you had in experiencing it that you want to share.  You want others to see what you saw.  Why else do we take pictures? To preserve something?  Mainly, we want others to see what we see.  Experience what we experience.  Fun is the thing we love the best.  And fun is an equal opportunity employer.  It will work with any package of ingredients.  It’s the experience that will be retold over and over.

And she’ll have fun fun fun till her daddy takes the t-bird away.  Indeed.