Thursday 3 April 2008

The days tick away...

Hi Everyone,

So we're a little over three weeks away and the reality that I'm running a rather large event in the near future has just hit. In a rational sense most things are in hand but I'm kind of at that point thinking about 'what if this happens?' or 'what if that happens?'. Obviously those are all bridges to cross if we come to them, and hopefully we never well!

In the real world, outside of my paranoia, the venue is all set, catering is now confirmed and the schedule is finalised, with Michael Marshall Smith replacing Steve Gallagher on the scriptwriting panel. You can check out the schedule at www.derby.gov.uk/altfictionschedule or of course a few entries prior to this in the blog...

So what's left to do? A list of small tasks which is unfortunately about as long as my arm. There's a whole host of things to buy- namebadges, books for sale (I'll be running an official event bookshop this year, which will be aiming to have titles by all the authors taking part!!), t-shirts (which again I'm hoping to have a stock of on sale), stationery and so on...

There's also the programme booklet to sort, which will be a job for the weekend. There's the mailouts to all the attendees to go (there's a stack of envelopes on my desk just waiting to be stuffed...) and of course the continued marketing efforts as we run towards the event. Then I have to make arrange with our fabulous volunteers, sort out the goodie bags, get all the stuff to the venue (which is more challenging without my own car!!) and a whole heap of other tiny jobs that will no doubt keep popping up!!

I tend to find the best thing to do in this run up is give up on a social life of any kind and just get stuck in until the day really!!! So that'll be the plan from here on in...

Anyway, if anyone does have any questions as the days tick away just drop me a message here or send me a line at alex.davis@derby.gov.uk and I'll do what I can to help!!

Thanks a lot

Alex


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