Friday night I went to SummerJamz #2 at Polk Theatre, a joint venture between Florida Dance Theatre and Polk Theatre. It was a great show, but I was disappointed by the low turnout. Maybe it’s just because it’s the summer and people are out of town. I’ll do a better job of reminding everyone about the one coming up on August 14. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos. Please forgive me for their bad quality. I took them with my cell phone:
Bio: Meredith Spresser is the Public Relations & Marketing Manager for Polk Museum of Art. She has been with the Museum since 2000, and was initially hired as the Curatorial Assistant (not to be confused with the Assistant Curator). In January 2007, she was promoted to her current position.
Bev Hendricks
8 months ago
I’m sure there are more people in town than there are out of town. It’s an enormous challenge to get people out for anything. Plus, we are innundated with information and I suppose that doesn’t help either. I read and hear stuff all day long and can’t remember most of it an hour later. Last night my nearly 29-year old daughter asked me about my first memory of historic significance. I told her that had to be the Apollo I tragedy in 1967.
Lorrie
8 months ago
I also have attended both SummerJamz performances. Friday night I was pleased to have lured 2 friends into coming, who lured 2 of THEIR friends into coming, too. I have a whole host of ideas as to why this event isn’t going well. I will say that the organization of the July event overall was a great improvement over June. Great idea to mix the bands in between the dancing and fashion show.
I’ll be unable to attend in August, but these are some things I would love to see change: start the event at 9 p.m.- not 10:15 (last month) or 10 p.m. (this month). That’s a heck of a lot of waiting around for those who had the desire to attend. Lose the whole “club” theme of “dressing to impress” and ladies in free before 10 p.m. If this is a fundraiser for the Polk and Florida Dance theatres, why are they letting ANYONE in free?!
Lose that announcer. He is loud and obnoxious. And Friday night, he was vulgar and cursed too much. The F-word?? Come on. And if I heard, “Can I get a hell yeah?” one more time, I thought I was going to rip out someone’s throat.. Some of these attendees appear to still be in high school. In my opinion, a great deal of his language is uncalled for. And news flash- we all get that he’s gay. He doesn’t have to constantly elude to it throughout the night.
I saw lots of promotion for the June event, but virtually nothing for the July event. See if there is a PR person who’s willing to assist in promotion. It’s for a good cause, so you just may find a taker.
Let me be clear- I LOVE the dance numbers, the bands were 100% better this time, the fashion portion is edgy and like nothing many will ever see in Lakeland. There are some true artists participating in this event. I love that there is a venue such as this where they can express themselves. I was so happy to finally see a live performance by a member of Moxie Le Femme. There is a lot that is good about this event. But the things that are bad are SO bad, that it doesn’t surprise me that attendance is low. And the June event appeared to have become a crash course in how NOT to conduct this thing, as opposed to something that really got people talking about SummerJamz (in a good way) and telling their friends about the next one, which in turn could have drawn a bigger crowd.
Again, just my opinion.
Meredith
8 months ago
Lorrie, I agree with everything you’ve said, and I’ve passed your comments on to one of the organizers of the event. Thanks for the feedback! I know they’ll appreciate it.
Dale
7 months ago
Thank you Meredith and Lorie for your invaluable support and feedback. We want to continue to make SummerJamz bigger and better and we can only do that with your help. We take your comments to heart and you can look for improvements, better timing, etc. for the August event.
Thanks,
Dale
Polk Theatre