So, I seem to have really piqued people's interest on Friday, when I admitted that I'm giving serious thought to opening up a "lite" version of my arts center this September, and my inbox has been flooded with people wondering if I would tell just them the details, before I'm ready to discuss it in public. And like I said, I didn't want to talk about it at all until I'd had a chance to discuss it with my friend Nikki Patin, because I'm interested in getting her involved; but it turns out that we're meeting up this afternoon, in fact, precisely to do so, so I guess it won't hurt to go ahead and talk about it a little early. And today's recounting is told under the assumption that Nikki will be involved, which I think is most likely that she will.

Okay, so first a little background information, for those who need it. Regular readers, of course, know that I'm in the middle of trying to open a new arts center here in Chicago, one dedicated to providing additional resources, opportunities and revenue to underground artists, and to getting them connected with the audience precisely trying to find them. (Oh, and in answer to numerous questions on the subject - the center does have a name, and a rather cool one if I may say so. I haven't registered the name with the government yet, though, or purchased its URL, so I still can't announce it publicly; so I'll just call it the Unnamed Arts Center today instead, or UAC.) And admittedly, the plan I've put together for UAC is a pretty ambitious one, when compared to the number of real-world successes I have under my belt at this point: it calls for the center to have its own 1,500-square-foot space for galleries, offices and a performance venue; for us to produce 300 live events our first year, 20 photographic exhibitions, 20 paper books and $5,000 worth of general gift-store-style merchandise; with a thriving membership program and hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing in and out of the center every year. And I am currently in the process of seeking $100,000 from private investors to try to open such a center, and have a formal business plan for it and everything.

I've been lucky enough now to have convinced around 40 people or so to read and critique the plan, ranging from personal friends to business professionals who usually get paid hundreds of dollars for such a thing. And funnily enough, almost every single one of these reviewers has eventually given me the same suggestion - that I go ahead and start up some working version of UAC, even if it's just a fraction of the scope of the full plan, for no other reason than to start having successes, building a customer base and getting in the public eye, therefore undoubtedly making the fundraising efforts for the full plan go at least a little more easily.

I've been highly resistant to such an idea, though, even after hearing it so many times; and that's because I'm afraid of my center getting saddled with a reputation as an "underground" place if started up in such a way, one that we would never be able to get rid of, and therefore never be able to expand into the full vision I have in mind. Oh, you know that reputation I'm talking about - that the organization is being run by a bunch of artists, who don't really know what they're doing, in the back room of some anarchist bookstore that smells like pee, which is as small as it is because they can't get their shit together enough to do more, and therefore is a waste of time to support their efforts to grow, because somehow or another it's guaranteed that they'll find a way to fuck it up. And this is a very common reputation for underground artistic organizations to pick up, frankly, because in most cases it's true, and most of the time those groups really are that small because they really can't get their shit together enough to grow into something bigger.

As regular readers know, my organization is not going to be this way - I've been studying traditional business issues for the last year and a half, after all, will be applying those lessons to UAC, and trying to run the place as if it was any other small business - which is why I've resisted the idea of opening a smaller version of the center, just to avoid the chances of picking up the reputation in the first place. But after a recent discussion again about it all with my friend Carrie Golus, my mind's been returning recently to this subject, and to whether such a thing could actually be possible - to be able to go ahead and open up UAC for business, in a profoundly smaller way than envisioned, while still establishing the reputation of a larger, more respected cultural institution, like the Old Town School of Music and the like. And after contemplating all the issues involved, I think I may have indeed finally struck upon an answer; and the irony, of course, is that what caused the final piece to fit into place was to remember how many of the popular club nights in the UK work, which of course is a quite different subject than that of intimate, heady literary events.

See, for those who don't know, popular nights at danceclubs here in the US tend to revolve around the venue sponsoring the night in question; there may be a specific group supplying the DJs, or setting the theme, but the evening's ultimate success or failure depends mostly on what its customers think of the actual space hosting the event. In the UK, however, what an audience member might think of a club night depends much more on the organization sponsoring the event, not the venue where it's located; that is, it might be the same place spinning the same music and flashing the same lights two Wendesdays in a row, but attendance will change simply based on what organization is sponsoring which particular night. In effect it turns club promoters in the UK into "roving brands," relying on a series of venues to actually host the events they produce, bringing their reputation, fans and current marketing efforts with them to each production. (The reason I originally learned about this, by the way, is that this is how many poetry organizations in the UK work as well; and this is almost the opposite from how most poetry shows in the US work, which got me curious, which is why I asked and got this answer back.)

So, it occurred to me, why not consider UAC in the same way? That is, from day one we give off the attitude and take on the responsibilities of being a full, mature organization; only in our case one without a permanent physical space of our own. After all, even the full plan's central premise is to tie all its activities together through a cutting-edge website, one that is likely to grow more popular than even any of the physical events we produce; and nothing about that would change if we were to open as a roving organization, instead of one with its own physical space. Granted, we wouldn't be able to sponsor any photographic exhibitions, but we would be able to continue sponsoring live literary events, publishing books and merchandise, running a membership program and the like. And as long as the center has the right attitude, as long as we act as though we are a reputable organization, with plans to profoundly expand with each year, it should be possible to get the general public under such a plan to treat us the same way.

Now, obviously the lite version of UAC wouldn't be producing nearly the amount of material as the full version - which is the whole point, frankly, to go ahead and simply start producing what we can, taking the miniscule profits each project would generate and applying them to future projects of an ever-growing scope. So, for example, the full plan calls for the center to publish ten paper books its first year; and the lite version would publish ten books as well, only electronic versions instead of paper, and given out for free under a Creative Commons license instead of sold. Each time, then, that the center does find itself with an extra $100, we could go ahead and print 100 paper copies of one of these books, and hopefully have three to four such titles actually published and for sale by the end of our first year. And UAC would also still have merchandise, as another example; but instead of $5,000 spent on a whole range of objects, like the full plan calls for, the lite version would be producing only a single t-shirt design, and printing only a couple of dozen of them at a time, some of them sold at live events but mostly existing as promotional giveaways to touring authors, members and the like.

What's so exciting to me in particular, though, about the idea of a lite version of the center, are the live events; because this is the background I myself come from as well, of course, the one part of center operations where I have the most experience, know the most about what I'm doing, and which frankly can cause the greatest amount of attention for the center with the smallest amount of money. So the first thing I would do under such a plan, for example, is establish a new weekly poetry slam here in the city - at a bar in Uptown I already have in mind, in fact, that I can't mention yet because I haven't formalized things with them, but can mention is a place already popular with artists and fans of artists, that is already holding live events in its back room, whose owners used to regularly attend poetry events themselves, back when I was a writer in the '90s, and have even donated money in the past towards my travel adventures. (My whole point being, of course, that it's very likely that they'll be into the idea of hosting a slam.)

Under the lite plan, the UAC Slam would be the social focal point of the entire organization - the place where we recruit most of our Fellows (working artists, that is, who donate three of their pieces to the center, in return for free admission to all our events), the place where we generate a huge portion of our content, the place where we maintain a very public face within the existing Chicago literary community. It'd be run like the Green Mill's slam, frankly, because the Green Mill's slam works almost perfectly as it is - 45 minutes of an open mic, then a break, then 30 minutes of a featured performer, then another break, and then a 30 to 45 minute slam, featuring six to eight competitors, for a grand total of around two and a half hours for the entire event. Charge $3 at the door, free for Members and Fellows; and then of that money generated, $50 goes towards that night's feature, and $20 apiece towards the host, Nikki and myself as "salaries," with the rest going into the UAC account. (So in other words, we would need 25 paying audience members per show to break even, not counting my and Nikki's salaries, which would be the first payments dropped on a slow night.)

But see, here's the beauty of the lite plan - that at the same time we're sponsoring this weekly slam at this hipster, funky tavern, we would also sponsor a quieter, more laid-back event once a month, at this coffeehouse here in my neighborhood that will again go unnamed for now, but where I know the owner and have actually discussed such an idea with him in the past. And under our idea of an appropriate show for each appropriate venue, this show would be one dedicated to more literary topics and personalities, with a three-part plan in place for the actual show - first a discussion between me and the featured guest, ala Charlie Rose or "Inside the Actor's Studio," then a period where the guest reads literary work aloud, either their own or work they're a fan of, then a break, and then 15 to 20 minutes of questions and answers with the audience, again moderated by me and with the questions written down on index cards. And so this series would again feature those involved with the literary world, but for whom a slam would be a wildly inappropriate venue - novelists, for example, short-story writers, essayists and columnists (hint hint, Eric Zorn, who actually wrote last week to say that he'd be interested in the hypothetical show idea I recently proposed here), literary critics (hint hint, Jessa Crispin), editors of popular websites (hint hint, Andrew Huff and Rachelle Bowden - and how cool would it be, by the way, to get both of them on the same stage one night?), etc. And again, such events would cost $3 to the general public, and be free to Members and Fellows, and with UAC books and merchandise being sold in the back, and with a chance to immediately become a paying member on any night you attend. (UPDATE: Just talked with the owner, who is in fact all excited about the idea, and who gave me permission to mention him publicly; it is in fact the delightful Dollop Coffeehouse, here at Buena and Clarendon in the Uptown neighborhood.)

Oh, but it doesn't end there, either - in fact, I even have a third show in mind as well, at a local bookstore which will again go unnamed, but where again I am a friend of the owner, and in the past have not only performed there, not only have books of mine there for sale, but have also organized and hosted past events. And this particular series would play into what this particular bookstore is already famous for, which are themed invitational showcases, featuring anywhere from three to ten performers all tied to a specific medium or topic; so an entire showcase of just bloggers, for example, a showcase of just postmodern erotica writers, a showcase of just humorous political essayists. And then because of this particular bookstore's guidelines, all events there would be free, and no money guaranteed upfront to featured performers; instead we would pass around a donation jar, and split the total amount raised between ourselves and the people being featured.

So, maybe not the same accomplishments as the full center - but this would at least allow us to produce 60 to 70 very popular, very fun events within the next year; and to generate nearly $5,000 in revenue, if all went well (almost every penny of which would be put right back into the hands of working artists), and to get the center's brand in front of, what, a thousand people locally, and tens of thousands online, and to hopefully make fans who will eventually turn into paying members, and to generate favorable press and the like. And today's entry doesn't even begin to scratch the surface, of course, because we haven't even talked about the website yet; but I'm just about out of space today, so that'll have to wait until tomorrow.