Hi everyone, This is addressed to everyone but especially those in South Florida who would like to exhibit their EVs in Miami on Sunday April 20 at an Earth Day event there. I am especially interested in Allan Miller's take on this, as he is local and closest to both of these venues and as such knows them best.
The problem is that there are two different Earth Day events taking place in Miami on the same day, Sunday April 20, at two different locations. The two are separately organized, and neither has anything to do with the other. We have been invited to exhibit at both. The decision we have to make, for those interested in exhibiting their EVs at an Earth Day event in Miami on April 20, is which one do we choose to go to? Or maybe would some of us like to choose one of the two events and others choose the other event? I don't think it really has to be a group decision (which with as individualistic a group as EVers are, can be like trying to herd cats :-) but rather should left to each individual in terms of which event you want to attend. I will list the two events and what I see as the pros and cons of each. These pros and cons are just my own opinion, and I may be way off base on some of this, especially not being from Miami, which is why I'd really like to get Allan Miller's take on this. The two events are: 1) The Green Apple Festival Earth Day Celebration, being held in Bicentennial Park, and 2) The Key Biscayne EarthFest, being held at the Biscayne Nature Center in Crandon Park on Key Biscayne. -------------- 1) The Green Apple Festival Earth Day Celebration, being held in Bicentennial Park www.greenapplemusicfestival.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=17&Itemid=34 Pros: a) I'm not entirely sure about this, but this event *may* have a bigger promotional/publicity/advertising budget this year than the Key Biscayne EarthFest. This is a large nationally-based organization with a national series of events that are taking place simultaneously in 8 cities around the country: Washington DC, New York, Miami, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, LA, and San Francisco. This could be seen as either a positive or a negative, possibly a positive from a promotional/publicity/advertising budget point of view, but a negative in other ways, as I will discuss below. Bands that have confirmed they will be playing: Menudo (the pre-pubescent Latin boys group), and hip-hop group Arrested Development. I'm not sure whether this is a pro or con, hence I've put it in between the pros and the cons. :-) Cons: a) The main organizer of this event is in Berkeley, California, from where he is handling all the Miami event details. There does not appear to be any locally-based organization coordinating the effort. This is a decided negative in my view. b) I'm not sure that Bicentennial Park is such a great location. First of all, it is not near any residential areas. Second, there is all kinds of construction going on right along that part of Biscayne Blvd. there, and parking and accessibility always seem to be a big problem around there. If they wanted to hold the event downtown, I think Bayfront Park would have been a better location. What do you think, Allan? c) This is the first year for this particular Green Apple Festival Earth Day Celebration in Miami. They don't appear to have any exhibitors that have yet signed up and committed to exhibiting at this event. d) Exhibitors are responsible for bringing and setting up their own display booth tents, tables, and chairs. -------------- 2) The Key Biscayne EarthFest http://earth-learning.org/page.aspx?vpageid=1002&itemid=1383 Pros: a) This is the second year for this event. (I exhibited at it last year.) b) In my view, this location is very good, about as good as you can get in Miami -- the layout, parking, ease of accessibility, the beautiful setting. It is immediately adjacent to the upscale residential neighborhoods of Key Biscayne, which is one of the most progressive and environmentally conscious communities in Miami-Dade County, actually in all of South Florida. There are more NEVs there than anywhere else I've seen in South Florida, other than maybe Key West. Most families seem to have two vehicles, a gas car for driving into work in downtown Miami, and a NEV that the family uses for all their local errands on the island, running the kids to school, going shopping, going out for meals, etc. People on Key Biscayne already *get* it about EVs. So the audience at this event is generally very receptive and EV friendly. It's the right demographic. c) The event is locally-based and locally-organized, which I always feel has a better prognosis for being a better event with better attendance than an event that is being organized by outsiders 3,000 miles away. d) The bands playing are some of the same bands that played last year, which were well received. They are locally-based bands, some of them made up of local environmentalists, Miami Sierra Club members, etc. e) Exhibitors will be provided with display booth tents, tables, and chairs, which the event organizers will have already set up in advance for exhibitors. OK, now we transition from the pros/positives to the cons/negatives, and I guess I will just do this narrative style with an explanation of what is going on with this year's event that's different from last year. Last year, in its first year, this was by far, without a doubt, the absolute best event, and best attended event, that I have ever exhibited at anywhere in Florida in my 3 years of doing such events. But that was no accident or happenstance. As I have learned in 3 years of doing such events, the quality of any particular event and its attendance are directly related to and primarily determined by the quality of the organizers and the effort they put into organizing the event. Last year, in its first year, this event was put on by two of Miami's best known, liked, and respected, well established and best connected environmental movers & shakers -- Rebecca Carter of GreenerMiami and Theo Long, Director of the Biscayne Nature Center at Crandon Park on Key Biscayne. Rebecca and Theo were the two primary organizers and literally put months and months of work into organizing the event, about 6 months of continual hard work and enthusiastic, passionate effort. They hired one of Miami's best connected, high-powered PR firms to handle the publicity for the event, and that was also done months in advance. Every single Miami TV station was there covering the event (which was a miracle for a Sunday, as it is extremely difficult to near impossible to get the TV stations to come out and cover anything on a weekend in Miami). I was interviewed on live TV with my RAV4-EV. OK, that *was* the positive, at least for *last* year. Now we get to the negative for *this* year. Rebecca and Theo had initially started the process of organizing this year's event towards the end of last year. I got an email from Rebecca in December telling me to expect updates from her throughout the winter on the organizing effort for the April 2008 event. Well, I never received anything from her after that, nor anything from anyone at all. Curious, I wrote Rebecca several days ago to ask what is going with the Key Biscayne EarthFest and if it is going to be held again this year. A few days later, I got a short email back from Rebecca telling me that she is on maternity leave and expecting to deliver her baby soon, so she had to drop out of organizing the event this year. She also informed me that her co-organizing partner from last year, Theo Long, had some family issues that similarly required her to drop out of organizing the event this year. Rebecca didn't answer my question about whether they have hired the same PR firm to handle the promotions, publicity, and advertising for this year's event, but the answer to that is obviously "no". Rebecca informed me that she and Theo have turned over the organizing of this year's event to a couple of low-level Miami-Dade County Park Service functionaries/bureaucrats and referred me to them. I started thinking to myself -- Oh no, this event has been abandoned and is doomed, and immediately thought back to that ill-fated 2006 Miami Beach Earth Day event that was similarly organized by a couple of low-level City of Miami Beach functionaries/bureacrats without the passion, enthusiasm, energy, high-level connections, support, nor advertising budget to organize a high-quality event, and we all remember what a flop and fiasco that event was ... basically a complete waste of our time. I have now been contacted by these two low-level Miami-Dade County Park Service functionaries/bureaucrats who are organizing this year's Key Biscayne EarthFest. In looking over the material they just sent me, it looks like this year's organizing effort is coming together very late and that few exhibitors have signed up yet. Furthermore, it doesn't look like there is going to be any serious publicity and advertising effort this year like there was last year. In particular, I would not expect even a single TV station to be there this year. I would also expect this year's attendance to be way down from last year. Last year, there were probably like around 2,000 to 3,000 people there during the course of the afternoon. Allan Miller remembers; that's where I first met him. This year, I'm guessing they'll be lucky to get a few hundred. -------------- So anyway, folks, that's the situation on these two events as I see them and my read on them. As I said, I'd really like to get Allan Miller's opinion on all of this and which event he thinks has the better chance of being the better event to attend. As I said, maybe some of you would like to attend the Bicentennial Park event and others attend the Key Biscayne event. Despite my disappointment in the abandonment of the Key Biscayne event organizing effort to low-level Park Service bureaucrats, I myself am leaning towards going back to Key Biscayne again this year, just judging and taking everything on balance. Also, just the fact that it is still a local, community-based event means more to me than a national series event being organized 3,000 miles away with little-to-no apparent local organization. Maybe Andrew Roddy or others would be interested in going to the Bicentennial Park event, and then we could compare notes afterwards. Depending on what Allan Miller says, I think I am going to go ahead and sign up for the Key Biscayne event. If any of you want to sign up for the Bicentennial Park event, please let me know and I will send you the relevant contact info and details. Sorry for the length of this post. Just wanted to give everyone as complete a picture as possible with which to make your own judgement/decision about which event to attend, if any (or maybe neither). Best regards, Charles Whalen Florida EAA Delray Beach, FL [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Florida EAA mailing list [email protected] http://www.floridaeaa.org
