ScoFarGo – Street Food, Beer, Music and Coventry

This is the big one. The one we need to get right. Reputations and what not. On the 29th of November, 10 days from now, Scoff will be throwing their biggest event so far. There will be beer, there will be music, there will be vintage crafts and there will, no doubt, be street food. The one thing that is never certain is whether there will be any people. This; the great uncertainty of the public event. You can do everything right: talk to everyone, tweet like there is no tomorrow, wallpaper the student areas with flyers, beg bloggers for support and send press releases to everyone you have ever met. When it comes down to it, on the day, everyone might, for no reason at all, not show up.

That’s a worst case scenario, just to put you in my frame of mind. We are hoping that instead there will be hundreds of people with happy smiles and hungry stomachs and we will have an epic day of street food love. With that thought in mind let me quickly give you the full spiel, just so that you have the facts and can come bouncing up on the day, should you be available:

For a free event, that’s an impressive line up. But in 4 years of street food I have seen enough dreadful events to know that an impressive line up does not mean the people will come. Nor does a tiny line up mean they won’t. The difference between ScoFarGo being a roaring success or quiet failure is dependent on only two things:

ScoFarGo Success Thing Number One

The weather. Our old nemesis is back. Barny will confirm that I cannot watch films where the “bad guy” is the weather any more – Twister, the Day After Tomorrow, Hard Rain, Perfect Storm – I get antsy because there is nothing you can do about the weather. If it rains on the 29th then only the hardcore will show up. As it happens Fargo Village has tons of shelter, so please do still come if it does rain, but there it is: the damp, unavoidable Achilles Heel of event organisation.

ScoFarGo Success Thing Number 2

The promo. I am not an event promoter. I do not have a network of media people waiting to hear what new and interesting stories I would like to feed them. I have you guys, and Scoff’s followers, and twitter. All the founding members are out there doing their bit, flyering and tweeting and all the good stuff. The response has been fantastic, with loads of people excited for the day. So lots of people know. Great. As long as we have done enough and Success Thing no.1 doesn’t get in the way, there is nothing standing between us and beer & food based glory.

I think we are on the right track. If you can spare a quick tweet, or have a telly executive with a massive scheduling hole to fill then so much the better. Unfortunately, and I think anyone who has ever organised a public event will back me up here, only time will tell.