Closing in

First let me say that, although I’m sure nobody but me cares about this, the app I’ve been using to blog on my phone has crapped out (being phased out? Who knows. All I know is it deleted an existing post and won’t post anything anymore) so now I’m posting via the web which is just wonky enough that it makes me less inclined to post. I’m sure I’ll get past the general inconvenience of it, but that’s why I haven’t said much despite a lot going on.

As I think I noted last time, my attendance has fallen off a cliff - I’ve still probably only gotten 20 or so people registered this entire month, when usually it’s 200-300 people. I’m currently down anywhere from 150-200 people from last year, depending on the day, and with people still only sliding in at one or less a day, I don’t see this dramatically changing in the next five days. So the thing I feared all along since the election but never saw the slightest indication of has finally happened in the 11th hour - I’m down about 15%. Which, surprisingly, I can manage to weather financially just this one time - the event is paid for as of a couple of days ago, and my early ticket sales will pay for me to live until February as long as I live frugally. Beyond that is a giant black hole.

But I did make the executive decision to pull the extra day from my remaining two contracts. At this point I think I’d be crazy to assume things will magically be better next year - I think they’ll be far, far worse, honestly - so I need to really gird my loins and cut corners and just try to survive the next few years. I hate that this is where my business is at at nearly 30 years - at this point I should be successful and thriving and just coasting - but as the H reminds me, every business is suffering under Trump, especially ones like mine that aren’t essential in people’s lives and involve tourism. And ups and downs are to be expected - I’ve seen many. So it’s time to retract. I think I found a way to keep most of the new things without the extra day. It can be done. 

I reached out to my new contract lady, who answered me via WhatsApp because she’s on vacation in Australia (thankfully she answered!). She said she’d take my request to whatever team handles it - there’s still a chance they’ll just straight up say no or try to penalize me in some way - I just hope I get an answer before the event starts and I have to start selling tickets. I think it shouldn’t be a problem, though - I’ve done it before, and they know my numbers are down, and my contact told me the hotel has been very slow this summer. So everyone’s feeling it.

Beyond the annoyance of all that (and knowing if Kamala were president none of this would be happening), the operations of the event are fine, I guess? I’ve never had teachers be so flaky about getting me class titles - at this point for the first time ever I may just have to print up schedules with blanks on them. Everyone is being very last minute and it’s driving me nuts. So my work has also been dragged out far later than usual because of everyone else’s slacking, so I have more last minute tasks than I normally allow. But it’s all under control. I have a fairly low key weekend, thankfully, except for having to be bandleader in the scorching heat tomorrow (last Knott’s appearance, thank god) so I can get a lot of the more fiddly tasks done. Then two more days and then I pack up and head to the hotel Wednesday. Honestly, I’m relieved this is the last year starting on Thursday - I think it’s going to be exhausting, and I think at the end of it all of us are going to be secretly or not-so secretly wishing it still started on Friday. So now we (hopefully) get to return to that after just one year. Everyone will understand, especially if I keep the extra stuff they like, which I will. This also makes the school situation much better for us since this year it’s super complicated getting me to the hotel Wednesday but the kids still have school Thursday. It’s messy.

In other news, the start of school has gone well - Theo fills me in every day about his “kinder helper” tasks which is beyond adorable; Bobby is annoyed he has to put his phone in a pouch every day (I also think this is stupid) and complains a lot about having to be back at school and all the homework; I guess I can’t blame him, I’m sure I did the same. Especially when I was in 8th grade and things started to get really hard and involve a lot more work, which they have for him, too. 

So this may be my last post before my event. I’m sure we’ll have the usual dramas and failures but I’m just hoping everything runs as it should, people buy tickets for next year, and I can exhale for a few months. See you on the other side. 

First day of 6th & 8th grade

Summer is officially over - the boys started 6th and 8th grade today. It’s the first year in two years that nobody is starting a new school, which means the anxiety level is much lower than usual. Since the kids are apparently past the school supply age (neither class had any info on what was needed), I just stuffed their back packs with left over folders, spiral notebooks, pens and pencils from previous years, and left it at that. I figure as long as they have something to write with and write on, we’re good.

Theo’s school didn’t announce the teacher assignments until yesterday, so on our way to lunch we all dropped by the school to see who Theo got. It’s another teacher I’ve never heard of; I hope this year goes better than last. Bobby, in a rare moment of affection, said it was weird that this was the last year we would ever be looking for teacher assignments for Theo - he said, to him, Theo would always be in third grade. Hard agree. 

This morning we were all discombobulated and off our game, and we weren’t the only ones - there was a horrific traffic jam leading up to Theo’s school, to the point that I had Theo hop out and walk (I’m going to guess he barely made it by the final bell). Bobby’s school, further down the road a few blocks, was also pandemonium. I don’t remember it being like that last year, although we may have come a different way. 

This year as his elective Bobby chose something called Music Lab, which of course delighted me. Although most likely it’s just composing music on software which is something he already does (one of his songs was chosen for use by a video game he plays), I’m hoping it’ll spark something in him. 

So now we’re back to our old habits. Even though it’s only been two months, it feels like an eternity since I was getting up this early, picking up kids from the library, making sure they do homework, etc etc. I’m kind of glad they started on Thursday so we can ease into it. I’m guessing not much will happen at school in these two days. 

For me, I’m in the thick of it with my event - long to do lists every day that keep getting put off by endless customer service emails. The latest mess was messaging everyone to remind them that the new Thursday night dance is not included in the weekend pass, after seeing that only about 10% of attendees had bought tickets for that night. This unfortunately caused a flood of angry emails of people feeling like they were being ripped off and swearing this was never advertised (it was, clearly, from day one). I had to call an emergency meeting with my staff to figure out what to do when 800 angry people show up on Thursday, shocked that they’re being required to shell out even more money. Because I guarantee only a small portion of people even read that email. Some thought they had a special pass that included the dance (there’s no such thing). Others thought because they were in a dance contest that night that they didn’t need a ticket (what? How…?). Chalk this up to an endless series of “how could you possibly think that??” To me all of this was crystal clear - but obviously not understood by 90% of attendees. I realized I can’t do this this way ever again - but then that eliminates much needed revenue from those tickets (and no, raising the weekend pass price won’t help, because I’m already doing that next year to cover other expenses, and I can only raise it so much). 

Put this together with the fact that, as of this month, my registration is falling off a cliff. There is now no doubt that I will lose people - I’m guessing 100, possibly 150. Which is not good, and what I had feared all along, yet, bizarrely, was not apparent until two weeks ago. Up until end of July I had consistently had exactly the same amount of people as last year, and then BAM, I’m now 50+ people behind. There’s no way I’m going to catch up in two weeks; I’ll be lucky to not lose 150 people. It really sucks, because if I’d had any kind of heads-up I at least could have prepared more. But here we are two weeks out and I’m suddenly looking at being behind by $30,000 - $50,000. I’m just hoping the money I make during the event is enough to just pay for it, and that I sell enough advance tickets during the weekend to survive until February. I hope I just hang in there, although I fear economic and political situations will only get worse by 2026. I don’t feel a need to cancel the extra things I’ve added, although if it gets to February and my attendance is tanking, I may not have a choice. I’ve been through economic downturns before and always survived - I have no mortgage anymore, we can do cheap camping trips, I can tighten the belt as needed. But the worry with events is always that you’ll lose that momentum - as people stop coming, people stop coming - nobody wants to go to a dying event that everyone’s decided isn’t the place to be anymore. I hope to god that isn’t my fate! I need this thing to at least last another 17 years!!

Three weeks out

The event is three weeks away and I’ve got the usual “oh my god how am I going to get all of this done” panic, with the knowledge that it will all get done, actually, like it always does. Friday I went out to the shed and poked around in last year’s boxes, which is always an odd time capsule. The boxes themselves were filthy, and it took me over two hours in the stifling heat to inventory and select the band t shirts which annoyed me to no end. I also discovered that a couple hundred dollars in unsold jackets got ruined by being placed in front of a window in a clear box, something I would have been mindful of but obviously whoever stacked that there didn’t think about. Sigh.

Right now the thing I had been worried about all year might actually, finally, be coming true, which is my sales have completely dried up since the price increase on the 1st, and I am now about 50 people behind last year, the biggest gap I’ve seen yet. I’m starting to think that prediction that I could lose 100-200 people because of Trump’s bullshit just might finally start happening in these last three weeks, despite being completely at par up until ten days ago. It’s mind blowing that there was zero indication of anything amiss until just now at the 11th hour, but here we are. Could it still turn around? Maybe, but that hasn’t been the case since the pandemic - usually the final month is pretty slow. I think there’s a chance I could break 1000, but that still puts me 100 people behind the last three years (and $30,000 less in revenue, plus the $30,000 extra I’m paying for the extra year, putting me $60,000 less than last year. Ugh). It’s been dead as a doornail for nearly two weeks; I think I’ve gotten maybe ten people? So I might have to accept that I’m going to lose a significant amount of people this year, and prepare for more as this country continues to go down the shitter. God, what does 2026 have in store for us?? I don’t even want to think about it.

We have three days at home with no school this week before the kids start school - tomorrow we’re spending the day at a waterpark (probably not a great idea since Mondays are busy for me - it’s going to be hard to turn off and relax), then hanging around at home, then school. Bobby still has to do one of his summer reading book reports, and I still have to get information about what they’re doing Thursday (Bobby’s classes, Theo’s teacher). I figure I’ll just send them in with a few supplies we have at home - notebooks, pens, pencils - and take it from there. Boy is this school start less stressful than last year!! Everyone is familiar with their environment, and we have a system in place for timely pickups (remember last year how I spent two hours each afternoon driving back and forth to pick them up? Omg!), so unlike last year I’m barely focused on their return to school. Weird how that changes.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m coming to realize I had some wrong ideas about parenting, as far as, how long I would actually be an involved parent. I think based on my own experience - remember, I was pretty much on my own at fourteen - I thought that once these kids are college-aged, I basically would never see them again. So I’ve been planning every vacation like it’s our last, and feeling like time is running out for us to exist as a family; but I’m starting to realize that that doesn’t have to be true. I mean, sure, I could cut them loose and just let them live private lives at a certain point, and some element of that is healthy and necessary. But certainly we can continue to do family trips well into their adulthood - why not? And with housing as it is and college as expensive as it is, there’s a very real possibility that they will both be living here a lot longer than just through high school. I don’t see any scenario in which either of these kids will be able to live in a dorm for four years; and moving out at all is going to be challenging. So as much as they’ll continue to grow and be independent and I’ll of course encourage that, it’s also not the late eighties/early nineties in which young adults can get a low-wage job and have their own apartments, not in LA, anyway. Not now. Maybe in five years if we overthrow this fascist regime, but I’m not going to hold my breath.