First Night .
Formerlyjerseyjack said:
These were popular until about 10 years ago. They were fun.
I missed the sport of getting NYE drunk but still, they were fun
Any chance of their being revived?
I worked on several of these as a volunteer or performer. They required a massive amount of volunteers, culture has evolved and levels of volunteerism are way down. Boomers were the energy behind it and we've aged out of this kind of project!
Formerlyjerseyjack said:
These were popular until about 10 years ago. They were fun.
I missed the sport of getting NYE drunk but still, they were fun
Any chance of their being revived?
Connie moved to be closer to her son and nobody took over. If someone wants to organize this event now, it could be revived. In the last few years, all of the events took place at the HS with some partnering with Midnight Madness so venues would be less of a problem and there might be the possibility of a built in volunteer base. As posted above, lots of volunteers would be needed to run the event and finding talent would involve contacts that most of us might not have. If you want to give it a try, you might find some seed help here.
The village would be a good choice to begin. Two churches, the two parks (each side of the railroad and Woodlawn.... all within walking distance.
Several towns had outdoor events, along with the indoor ones.
It was an enormous amount of time, effort and cost. I think that First Nights in general were victims of their own success. Performers found they could charge top dollar for NYE, and they did, pricing smaller FNs out of contention.
I was on the Maplewood South Orange board for many years--secretary, entertainment chair, president... The amount of time it took was ridiculous. We ended in January and started in February. First, monthly meetings of the board (and meetings of the committees more often); then more as the date drew closer. It was unsustainable. Its time had come.
There was an attempt to revive it about 10(?) years ago, but it didn't go anywhere because without public funding--which is for the following year--it couldn't succeed.
It was great while it lasted though. A lot of work, but also a lot of fun.
It was fun to have multiple venues, but there were a couple of bad weather years if I remember. Snow once, rain another or something like that. Some of the spaces were a little more spread out (like Prospect Presbyterian church) so that added a driving/parking angle.
We went to First Night at the high school a couple of times. I thought it was fun and well done. But Karen’s point is the big one. It’s a huge amount of work and needs a lot of volunteers. You have to pay performers and there are considerations like security and insurance. And the funds have to come from somewhere beyond ticket sales if you don’t want to price it out of range for a lot of people.
A state or NEA grant would certainly go a long way. I would guess that it is too late in this year to organize.
Is Maplewoodstock grant subsidized?
Formerlyjerseyjack said:
A state or NEA grant would certainly go a long way. I would guess that it is too late in this year to organize.
Is Maplewoodstock grant subsidized?
Maplewoodstock has fundraisers (merchandise/beer garden), charges vendors, and has sponsors. They also have their own army of partnerships and volunteers, some of whom work throughout the year to make the event possible. To the best of my knowledge, they do not receive any grant money. There are others on this thread who can better answer that question.
I’ve never heard or read anything concerning a grant for maplewoodstock.
I was lucky my kids experienced first night, it’s just one more thing that is slowly slipping away from memory these days. I thank you all for making that happen.
Yes, Maplewoodstock has not received a grant to date. We manage to get by every year on sponsorship, shirt sales, beer sales, food & art vendors donations, and various other methods. It's a lot of work.
I can only imagine the work needed to pull off a First Night. I think Morristown may be one of the only ones left: https://firstnightmorris.org/first-night-morris-county-buy-now/
These were popular until about 10 years ago. They were fun.
I missed the sport of getting NYE drunk but still, they were fun
Any chance of their being revived?