Supporting local musicians during this shutdown is important. We plan on using this support to create a series of special shows that will be live streamed in our socially distanced ballroom that can now hold 64 people.
Leader
James Carol
Location
15711 Waterloo Road Cleveland, OH 44110
With COVID increasing again, it is clear that musicians and venues are going to continue to be financially hurt until sometime next year. As the booking manager at the Beachland Ballroom, a club that normally supports all styles of local musicians, we see the need to develop a live stream series so that we can help bands have both an online audience and a small in-house audience since our capacity now is only 64. To do this right we would like to acquire the proper equipment and develop a team of people to perfect the sound and video which can then be used by the local musicians long into the future for promotion and to gain future listeners on their own website. We, along with other small venues in Cleveland like Grog Shop, Happy Dog and Bop Stop and with the support of non-profit Cleveland Rocks: Past Present Future, have been building a network to help keep the local music scene viable while navigating through COVID's necessary shutdown and extremely reduced capacity. To this end, we propose to do 5 well-publicized shows with some of the best local original bands during the month of December that will be live-streamed and recorded.
Our first job will be ordering a live stream switcher that can be added to our newly constructed soundboard, along with a couple of wall mounted cameras that can be rotated and moved remotely from the switcher. This will give Beachland the capacity to better help musicians get their product out into the world through internet presentations. We will then identify a group of local bands who have original material that this live streaming production can help and also we will be able to pay them for their creative work, which many of them have not had an opportunity to even do since the March shutdown, let alone be paid for it. These shows will be available for in-person viewing but only in a safe distance layout with just 16 tables available. So once the bands are selected we will start the information campaign to let people know and plan our live streaming broadcasting plans with BoxCast, the local company that will help with the technical aspects. Then we will get busy making these events happen.
Our music community in Cleveland has been hit hard by the COVID shutdown. Musicians who worked at clubs or restaurants to get by lost their jobs. Venues have been shuttered since March 15 and are only now starting to find ways to reopen safely. And they can't make enough at reduced capacity to pay bills. This fundraising project will make it possible to help Beachland Ballroom get through the end of 2020 but will also help close to 50 local musicians have an opportunity to perform their craft and get a paycheck. This will help keep the music alive.