UkeFest

The Fest was an outstanding event. The workshops had a 10% increase in attendance over last year for a whopping 116 attendees.

The Saturday night concert was almost sold out and we ended up with approximately 170 people at the show.

Our Hosts, The Ukrainian American Cultural Center, loved having us there, and hope that we will return again next year.

The local Ukulele Meet-up group, Morristown Ukulele Jam, were very happy with the way the Uke Fest integrated them more firmly into the Fest. Including their founder, Mark Dutton, running a workshop to one of their own on our planning committee, to being asked to start off the festivities on Friday evening with some pre-concert entertainment.

The Performers were, one and all excited and happy to have been involved in such a wonderful event and have become fast friends. Several of the performers let us know that the level of proficiency of our attendees is quite high.

Comments from the attendees included mostly praise for the team for producing a wonderful event, and they can’t wait for next year.

The vendors were mostly happy with both the new site and how sales went.

We had some wonderful Sponsors: Sam Ash donated 4 $50 gift certificates, 3 hard-shell uke cases, 60 Sam Ash T-shirts and 20 Sam Ash ball caps; Mainland Ukes donated a Ukulele, the Magic Fluke donated 2 $50 gift certificates and a pair of earrings, Strumstick Inc. donated a Strumulele, Funky Frets donated a ukulele. In exchange we had links on our webpage, their logos on our paperwork, posters of their logos as the stage backdrop. Two of our Door Prize winners were under 15 years old.

We had some great online newspaper coverage for the event from Bill Nutt and Peggy Wright of the Daily Record, and Kevin Coughlin from morristowngreen.com. One of the news outlets has a "10 best things to do in NJ this weekend", the Uke Fest was included as was Bruce Springsteen's Concerts. Somehow the info got mangled and I was received several calls asking about Bruce Springsteen playing on the Morristown Green on Sunday and did our ticket price cover his show. What a hoot! Wrong, but what a hoot.

We had a few issues: onsite registration, handouts, judging the room size needed for workshops, quality of the attendee lunch, air-conditioning. The committee is working on fixing these problems in advance of the 2017 Uke Fest.

Based on QuickBooks’ numbers - the Fest lost $146.86, not including ASCAP/BMI fees assessed to be $66, Insurance at $200, and unsold T-shirts at a cost of $648.11. Not too shabby considering I went $1,000 over my originally projected performer budget.

Actual Numbers for Uke Fest

Income:

Admissions: $10,279

Donations: $48

Merchandise (T-Shirts): $780

Total Income: $11,107

Expenses:

Rent: $2,100

Performer Fees: $7,040

Merchandise (T-Shirts): $1428

Misc: $1,333.86

Total Expenses: $11,901.97

Sub-Total P&L: -$794.97

T-Shirts: + $ 648.11

Insurance: - $200.00

AsCAP/BMI: - $ 66.00

Total P&L: - $ 412.86

Uke Fest currently has 38 unsold T-shirts, with a projected sale value of $760.

Interesting tidbit of info:

Comparing the finances of the 2016 NJUF to the 2016 Fall Acoustic Getaways projected numbers (from July 2016)

NJUF Getaway

Performer Fees $ 7040 $ 8500

Camp/Rent&Food $ 2700 $ 20000 (NJUF does not include room & board for the attendees)

Misc. $ 2000 $ 1000 (NJUF has workshop handouts to print)

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Original 2016 NJUF Planning information:

FP Exposure:

Projected to be approximately $11,000.

Rent: $2300 / Performer Fees: $7050 / Misc FP Expenses: $ 1600

Fest Info:

Aug 26/27/28, 2016

Ukrainian American Cultural Center - Friday/Saturday

Morristown Green - Jammin’ on the Green with the Morristown Uke Jam Meetup Group - Sunday

Performers:

James Hill / Victor & Penny / Manitoba Hal / Jim Boggia / Cousin Earth

Additional Instructors:

Curt Sheller / Christine DeLeon / Mark Dutton / FiL Wisneski

Concert Schedule:

Friday - Victor & Penny w/ Jim Boggia opening

Saturday - James Hill + Manitoba Hall w/ Cousin Earth opening