Future of the Y2K Live Looping Festivals

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

To the entire International Live Looping Festival and all who have ever 
come to
Northern California to perform or attend it.

I created some confusion about the future of the Y2K International Live 
Looping Festival
in the past year because I had announced that I was giving it up and 
retiring from doing
it.   This has changed.

This is going to be a rather long post but I want to be clear about how 
the festival
is going to proceed (with some very exciting new changes, globally)

Sooooooo...........

What happened was that I wanted a smooth transition to occur between the 
volunteers who
wanted to keep the festival going and the way I've done it in the past 
(which was to take on the lion's
share of the work) and I felt very burned out from having worked on the 
festival for free for
12 months out of last year and felt my artistry was really suffering 
because of it.

Three things happened that mitigated that approach, however:

1)  I had a very busy year and just didn't have time until late in the 
game to try and train people
2)  A couple of people who I had dearly hoped would take the festival 
over ended up not being
reliable and I felt insecure about the festival's future.
3)  Several people stepped forward and told me that they'd help me 
continue by taking some significant
load off of my back, so I could get back to being an artist again.

To whit:    Maha Taitano,  became a completely reliable, hard working, 
and enormously resourceful
and quick learning assistant to me.     Her help was just invaluable and 
, honestly,  gave me the renewed
energy and excitement to continue. Her coordination of front of house, 
MC-ing (a huge load off of my shoulders
not to have to MC all 30 hours of the festival as in past years), video 
projection and many loose end jobs,  Steve Uccello, completely took up 
the publicity and did a fantastic job as a relative newbie.   Trevor 
McClaine took on the mantle of the sound system (with generous donations 
of sound and lights from his father, Daniel Thomas), Rodent did another 
incredibly professional job of stage managing,  Fabio Anile created the 
poster and manned the website
(thanks to Chris Roberts generous donations to keep it running) and, to 
top it all of,   my brother Bill and wife, Chris really helped out with 
transportaion, housing and cleaning.    Bill also really was a stalwart 
in helping artists get on and off stage during the marathon of the festival.

We all did a fantastic job this year, it was a really fairly stressful 
year (aside from some minor prima-donnisms) and
I learned that I still love doing it and participating in it when I'm 
not overly crazed from too much
work.

So.  I think I will accept more help in the future and delegate even more
tasks but stay in charge of the shape of the festival (from a 
performers' standpoint) and the
overall vibe of the festival.

We are a team now, however,  and I really trust and value advice and 
offers of improvement from these
amazing people who put the festival on this year.

Additionally,  Florence, Rome, Koln, Berlin, possibly, Munchen,  
Singapore,  Osaka and perhaps a few other
cities are going to officially join the festival in doing satellite 
festivals around the world in the next several
years.

I'm so excited about this that I can't tell you.  For me, it's a dream 
come true.

I probably will never make it as gigantic as last year (70 artists from 
17 countries in 6 days in 3 cities) and think the festival will probably 
end up around 50 artists from however many countries in 6 days in 3 cities.

This makes a much more 'doable concert schedule'     A date for 
headliners and featured performers
in San Jose and San Francisco and three nights and two days of main 
festival in Santa Cruz.

APPLICATION for the FESTIVAL and RULES of PERFORMANCE will be posted on 
the website
at       www.y2kloopfest.com.

 I will start taking applications to play the festival on August 1st 
(and NOT before)
unless an artist is from very far away or are balancing important 
touring schedule considerations.

Please respect this boundary.    I want a minimum of 9 months of each 
year to be an artist who doesn't have
to be working on the festival.  Remember,  I am doing this for free.

Additionally,  as in past years............I will continue to favor 
performances of artists who come from
very far away (out of the country or from far across the country) and I 
will also tend to try and balance
participation between artists who have played before and artists who 
have not played before giving
precedence to artists who have been consistently strong crowd pleasers 
and artists who have consistently
supported the festival since it's inception.

Additionally,  I will continue to try and encourage relative and 
sometimes even completely
inexperienced newbies to the festival in the early hours of each of the 
weekend days.

It's not lost on me that people as talented as Zoe Keating, last years, 
Laurie Amat and  this year's  Pete Novembre have been newbies at this 
festival and I want to encourage the building of community and the 
encouragement and
nurturance of new artistry.   This is hugely important to me and a very, 
very rare thing in world wide musical festivals for the most part.

My intention is to accept everyone but the demand for the festival has 
grown.
I will try to be as fair as possible, I promise you.

Also, like last year,  If there isn't space for everyone, then I will 
highly encourage people to create
satellite performances to attach to the festival if they are willing to 
take on the entire job of producing such
festivals themselves.    Last year we had an impromptu "Newbie Festival" 
on Thursday night.

The more we build,  the better it will be.

So,   tomorrow, I drive to San Francisco to help take back several 
artists to the airport and the festival will be finally over for this year.

It was one of the best we've ever had and absolutely the most enjoyable 
for yours truly.

Bless this community and it's wonderful artists for their participation.
My life is infinitely better because of their love, committment and talent.

much love,   Rick Walker founder/director Y2K International Live Looping 
Festivals
                   www.y2kloopfest.com