Uploading My Consciousness Into Steemit!
For the month of December, anyway.
There were unforeseen circumstances in the music business, and all of our events are currently postponed until January - February 2017, missing the end year slot for an epic party (and handsome profits).
The venues around Kuala Lumpur have increased their asking price, and we're unwilling to take the risk. End year is particularly tricky because of the competition, and good-paying customers have a preference to go for the hottest parties. This will involve disproportionately expensive international acts. It's risky business, especially after considering the following:-
The police force may raid venues, because there'll be higher stakes during end of the year. The bigger players of the industry may game the scene with such backhanded tactics, and we may end up underestimating our cost (if you know what I mean). But these are tales that circulate within the industry. True or not, we don't really know lol.
The country's money is not in good shape at the moment. It got up into a new low against the USD recently. A large chunk of our spending would be in USD / EURO, but our ticket / bar sales are in the local currency. It would be easier to pull this off if we have strong sponsors, but we're still new as a company.
Small, underground parties may not work as well. The logistics during end year will be a nightmare. But doing a smaller one will not be as time consuming!
So I've decided to take a rest from the scene for the rest of the year!
I'll wipe the floors, scrape the rice crispies out of claypots, and tell high-stories of love and despair lol. Plus, it's time to start dabbling into Steem dev stuff. If anyone wants to mentor and throw me a simple first assignment, please reach out. I'm on Steemit.chat using the same username :)
Note: I wanted to release an hour long Steemfest #1 mix.. but my DJ console went kaput recently. I'll try to get that sorted next week! Or else, I'm just going to do a pre-rendered mix without doing it live.
I can relate to your situation...
When I worked in the cable business, December was a bad time for sales, so I took the month off.
A great place to go the first 3 weeks in December is Las Vegas and/or Laughlin Nevada; especially Laughlin. They are hurting at this time and prices are way down. Many buffets are half price and room rates are low. Many shows go dark because of the lack of business and there are all kind of specials to be had because they want to entice you to spend money.
I once lived in Laughlin for $200/week, which is a pretty good price for a hotel room with daily maid service in a 24 hour casino on the Colorado river. You can easily book all of Sunday through Thursday for under $100, the trick is the weekend where prices go way up; $50/night. Las Vegas is a tougher nut to crack, but it can be done. They used to have $19 rooms at Whiskey Pete's Casino in Primm Nevada, 20 minutes out of town, but I don't know if they still have them.
Finally, Las Vegas is a hub for musicians because there are so many gigs there. It might be worth it to spend some time there in a December and make contacts. You'll have to be careful in your research because Las Vegas is a big tourist trap, but not impossible to crack if you do the research.
Very interesting, i might just do this next year. Good time for the season :)
Better if it's 2-3 months, so I think an asian country would be easier. How long were you in those places?
I used to go to Nevada all the time and even had Nevada license plates. Two years straight, I got my license tags free because the casinos made so much money and the Nevada state government did not know what to do with the excess tax revenues so they made the license plate yearly renewals free! That was like a $100 savings for me.
I even lived in Las Vegas and went to dealer school in 1979. You owe it to yourself to see Vegas. It is one of the wonders of the world. Spectacles like world class roller coasters, erupting volcanos, real life sailing ship battles on artificial motes, free fall drops at 50 stories in the air, circus acts right over your head, mardi gras floats above with costumed people throwing beads, world's largest TV (like 100 yards long), venician canals with costumed gondoliers singing opera as they captained your gondola, and on and on. Those are only a few highlights, believe it or not.
I'm convinced that all the best musicians live in Las Vegas. There are so many gigs and all the greatest acts of all time appeared there; Elvi Presley, Frank Sinatra, Wayne Newton, Dion, Lou Rawls, George Benson - 1000s of them.
Laughlin is a real quiet gem. For me it was even preferable to Vegas because there are seldom big lines and you can walk easily to your car. Las Vegas, while exciting, is stressful; 3 days there and you are ready to go. However, living there and visiting Las Vegas are 2 totally different experiences.
I went to Laughlin every few months as a getaway. I have many happy stories to tell. They have gambling junkets to Vegas and Laughlin. They may even have them in Asia. I do know they are always looking for whales and high-rollers (what they call Asians who gamble alot).
Once my girlfriend and I flew from Arkansas to Elko Nevada for $100 per person. She even won the $125 raffle on the plane. Everyone wrote their name on a dollar bill and placed it in a paper bag. The stewardess chose one and it had her name so she won the bag of money.
There are a number of border towns like Jackpot, Primm and Mesquite that have cheap rooms Sunday through Thursday. If you had a vehicle, you could camp out from noon Friday to noon Sunday to save the high weekend prices. The whole area is a vacation paradise; Grand Canyon, Lake Meade, Palm Springs, Death Valley, Sedona. We don't think much about driving 100 or 200 miles here, because the roads are so good and that translates to 2 or 3 hours of driving, mostly non-stop and scenic.
I used to watch Nevada closely. Once, I got free rooms at the AVI casino near Laughlin. They were just giving them away. It is not that famous a casino, but it has a very nice sandy beach on the Colorado river where you can rent wave runners etc.
One of my favorite casinos is the Colorado Belle. It is getting a little old, but I don't care because it is centrally located and I have stayed there in $15/night rooms more times than I can remember. From there it's fun to take the river taxi (pontoon boat) which will whisk you to most of the casinos on the river.
Wow, you should really write a post, or a series about this! You totally sold the place for me lol. I've never heard of Laughlin before (among all the names mentioned). Beautiful, it's stuff like this that makes me wanna go over and try livin it out for awhile, although the US is the one that's most out of my budget!
Sorry to hear about your equipment and the end of the year fallout. Sometimes the risk outweighs the reward and we have to take a step back from something we love to breathe and assess the situation. It sounds like you've got a good head on your shoulders though. Keep on keeping on ;)
Yup, plus my partners are always telling me to explore more about Steemit, so I'm glad to be doing this ;)
I also decided to move offline for the Xmas period. I rented a chalet without any internet connection. I hope I will survive ... and stay far from my mobile ;)
Sounds like a great time. It's pretty easy to stay away once u're spending enough to experience something else :) just put the phone aside lol
The kids will help me to remember that ^^
Life goes on. As for assignments, maybe you should think about becoming a witness?
that'll be as part of backup witness @curie :)
ok, got that :)
Life goes like that, so great way to roll with the punches!
I was doing sales for some time, not much savings if you play by the rules :p
Rules.... Ha!
I laugh in the face of rules...
(right before I obey them)
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Great article!
Sorry to hear about end-of-year drama in Kuala Lumpur man. On the bright-side... Looking forward to more stream-of-kevin-consciousness. Keep us posted on the Steemfest Mix. Cheers!