HELLO!
Welcome to the first in what I expect will be a short series of extra communications from me about the forthcoming From Moscow To Mars Party, sorry it has taken me a little longer than I hoped to get this to you, I will try to be more realistic about how quickly I can gather the necessary information together next time. In the meantime thanks for your patience!
Obviously there are a lot of people who were unable to get hold of tickets to this event (which is why these details are coming straight to you rather than forming part of the regular newsletter), so anything you can do to spare their feelings would be much appreciated.
Here’s what I can share with you at the moment…
MORE ABOUT THE ‘FROM MOSCOW TO MARS PARTY’…
The party will take place at a venue called The Asylum in Birmingham, it’s about ten minutes walk from Birmingham New Street in an area called Snow Hill (I know this because I walked it when I was last there!) and is also well served by buses and public transport, although I believe a taxi from the station (for example) is only around £5 or so.
The Asylum is usually a rock venue and is not only run by some of the nicest people I have come across in my twenty-five years in the music industry, but it also has excellent sound and lighting set-ups. Please note that the event is a private hire and the venue won’t be able to answer questions about it, so if you have any of those please send them my way by replying to this email!
I am still fine-tuning the exact schedule with Andy and Vince. You will have all those details in advance of the event itself but doors will open no earlier than 2.30pm (but may possibly be a little later), the event will finish at 11.30pm and in between those times there will be a live Q&A with Andy and Vince (I will be collecting your questions for them to answer on the day itself so have a think about what YOU might want to ask… one question each, picked at random, and we’ll get through as many as we can); there will also be a meet and greet as you know, there are a lot of people attending which means your ‘one on one’ time with Vince and Andy will necessarily be very short (think of it more as a greeting line like you sometimes have at weddings) however there will be a chance for everyone to say hello, have their picture taken with the dynamic duo, and to get ONE ITEM signed if you would like that done as well (it’s also possible there will be a photographer on hand to take pictures for you, see below for more about that); the band will also be joined later in the evening by their very lovely backing singers Valerie Chalmers and Emma Whittle, and guitarist Nic Johnston, for a short acoustic set; and finally to close the evening both Vince and Andy will each play special DJ sets for you, with a unique warm-up DJ set from Glen Nicholls (you might know him better for his remixes for Erasure and many others under the names GRN and Dogmatix!)…
I NEED YOUR FEEDBACK ON THE IDEA OF ‘FROM MOSCOW TO MARS PARTY’ MERCHANDISE…
We are very sensitive to the fact that supporting the #Erasure30 project over the course of the last year has been expensive, and because of some very passionate feedback on that issue I had decided to not progress my plans to offer any event merchandise on top of what you have already budgeted for. However I now know from some of your comments online that there are some people who would very much like some merchandise items to be available, so I find myself conflicted!
To produce merchandise – and we were originally thinking of offering an event t-shirt, poster and souvenir laminate (like a plastic Access All Areas pass that you wear around your neck, although without it actually offering access all areas!) – requires a minimum order quantity to make it all cost effective so I am asking each of you to vote for the items you would purchase if there turns out to be enough interest to make them available.
As an extra issue, I am also asking whether those items should be exclusive to the people attending the show or whether they should be available more broadly?
If merchandise was to be made available then you would need to order online in the next week or two so that we can deliver the items to you before the party to avoid the logistics and costs of selling items on the night.
Anyway… I have set up a very quick survey on the Erasure website to ask those questions and I would be very grateful if you could pop over and vote. The password to enter that page is waitingforastar 😉
WOULD YOU LIKE AN OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER TO TAKE PICTURES AT THE MEET AND GREET?
This is another thing that I picked up online, the idea of providing a photographer to take pictures at the event, and in particular during the meet and greet, so that you can be more confident of a decent picture instead of another wobbly, blurry one taken on a camera phone! There would of course be an extra cost involved for that (which I don’t know at the moment but will try to keep to an absolute minimum) and because of that I have included a question about whether this is a service you might be interested in as part of the survey I told you about above. Your feedback will be very much appreciated. 🙂
MORE LOGISTICAL DETAILS…
There will be a bar available for the duration of the event. There may also be Erasure cocktails, but food is not served at The Asylum. I realise that you might need to pop out for something to eat midway through the festivities and there will be time to do that built into the schedule (licensing rules also dictate that you will not be permitted to bring your own food or drink into the venue). 🙂
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
If you have any special requirements for the evening (and I’m thinking more about things like wheelchair access than a bowl of M&Ms with the brown ones taken out) then please do let me know in advance (just reply to this email) so I can make sure I can work with the venue to accommodate you.
Any questions, please do ask, and if lots of you are asking the same thing then I will also answer them in the next update!
Erasure. Always.
CHEERS!
Richard