What needs doing?

Showstoppers

These are things that you absolutely MUST have to run a BJC. If one of them doesn't work out, it really could be a show stopper.

Once everything on this list is done, you can relax and be pretty certain that whatever happens, the BJC will come out fine somehow.

Most of these things involve paperwork and take an incredibly frustrating amount of time to get sorted out.

• A limited company. The bank account belongs to the company and the company makes all your contracts.
• A site under contract, with camping, parking, etc. If it's not under contract it's not happening.
• A show venue under contract.
• A licence (usually a TENS).
• A bank account. These take forever to open. Putting BJC money into your own bank account can cause nasty problems.
• Event insurance, to cover you against disasters and suings.
• Project Management. A project manager with a project plan.
• A budget, some accounts, and someone business-like to be in charge of these. They need to be a director of the company, unless you are VERY brave. You can save a lot of money on accountant's fees if your accounts balance, and they match exactly what it says on your bank statements.

Big Things that can be done by someone outside the core team

• A public show with a producer, a stage manager and its own budget. Costs include venue, lighting/sound equipment, operators of same, performer's expenses, performer's fees, performer's hotel rooms, green room food.
• Evening events. Shows (Open Stage, Renegade, BYJOTY, etc.), bands, ceilidh, pub quiz, whatever. This can be done by one person but a team is better and a budget is necessary.
• Site management. Bringing in marquees, big tops, heating, electrics, fencing and running these when on site. Dealing with external security. Considering health and safety issues.
• Traders need co-ordinating.
• Pre-reg. Taking orders by cheque, credit card, cash, whatever. Clothing/merchandise pre-orders are also possible. Producing a database for reg desk. The sooner you start pre-reg, the sooner you will have some money to spend.
• Running reg desk / info point. A big and responsible job involving a lot of cash handling. Needs a boss and a team.
• Applying for and spending any External Funding.
• Catering and a bar. These will kick back to you, usually a percentage of their takings.
• Publicity is very very important. Somebody needs to be in charge of this, preferably someone with a lot of friends and who knows how to run a website. You also need to be monitoring public forums and answering people's questions in a timely fashion.
• Graphic design. You need your website to look decent and you will need flyers, t-shirts, etc. Someone with professional experience of this will be much more likely to make a good impression, and hopefully your flyers won't come back with some dreadful mistake.
• IT. Using webmail (via your hosting provider) means that if your "workshops" person is run over by a bus, someone else can see all the sent and received workshop requests. Having somewhere to put documents like meeting minutes where everyone can see them is handy too.

• First Aid

Smaller, easier or less important things that can also be outsourced.

• Workshops. A person or team of people in charge of sourcing a good selection of these before the event and hopefully advertising them.
• Games. Someone who will organise the games and make them interesting. Either give them a bunch of prizes or a small budget for them to buy prizes. At some BJCs the traders have been persuaded to donate prizes for the games.
• Shopping list. Near to the time, many of the members of the team will have a list of things they need. Someone needs to make up the shopping list, then go to HSS and Costco (or similar) and buy those things.
• Parade. If you want one of these then someone needs to be running it
• Housekeeping / volunteers. Keeping the bins empty and the toilets clean. Asking people to kindly clean up their mess. Providing supplies for them to do this.
• Passes. Purchasing these within a budget. Don't forget: ribbon costs money when you are buying 1km of it.
• Merchandise (e.g. t-shirts). Buy decent durable stuff, because you will want to be seeing this gear on convention-goers in 10 years time. Remember, you want to receive it early enough to sort problems out if something has gone wrong, but not too early, because it takes up a LOT of space. Also, it will take longer than you think, both for you to decide what the colours should be, and for you to agree the graphics with the printer.
• Local information for info desk. People will have a lot of questions. Putting someone in charge of gathering all this info beforehand will save hassle.
• Handling press during the event. Doing interviews, babysitting reporters, etc.
• Childrens activities
• Photos/video.

Other things for you to consider

• Sound and lighting. People (maybe the big top provider, maybe the bands, maybe Mini Mansell) need to bring enough lighting for all the tents, and enough sound equipment for all the shows/bands/games/etc.
• Spaces for everything. How will the space flow, will the traders get enough trade, will the camping be quiet enough, can people in the bar get to the toilet easily, etc.
• Feeding crew. When you're in a rush, you don't want to queue for food and find change. Either run a tab somewhere convenient or put someone in charge of sourcing food and forcing your crew to sit down and eat it.
• Nifty stuff that makes your BJC special. Your BJC doesn't have to be the same as everyone else's.
• Nifty events or ideas that other people would like to run at your BJC. Some small effort at cultivating people who make suggestions can make a big payback in terms of exciting stuff that you don't have the time to do yourself.

Afterwards

Post BJC