[Libs-Or] Events with large groups in small spaces

[Rich Wandschneider]

i say you make some lemonade.  i would in fact issue tickets, and make a
big deal of the fact that your library cannot hold the event--and that you
are partnering with another organization--city hall, community college,
church hall, fire hall, legion hall, grange hall, whatever, and have them
issue tickets as well. figure out what you can accomodate at new venue and
issue 75 tickets, or 80, or 50, she is hot enough right now to bring a
crowd.

my two bits (but at fishtrap we could accomodate 55 in our building and
would do exactly this and put the event at the grange or IOOF hall if we
thought we might get 100. if we were going to get 65 we stuffed them in.)

so i guess always guess work involved, but issuing tickets ahead of
time--and being optimistic-- a good plan. you might call literary arts and
see what they say about crowd size. and the author, finally. if she wants a
small crowd in small space, you just hve to set that limit and call it a
conversation with author and give away that many tickets. --and the next
time people will really look forward to your program.

good luck!
rich

On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 4:04 PM, Maureen Cole <mcole at ci.oregon-city.or.us>wrote:

> Hi everyone:****
>
> We are having author Cheryl Strayed in March and we are likely to get a
> lot of attendees, quite possibly more than our small space can handle. What
> have you done in your library to manage attendance, both ahead of time
> (i.e. giving out tickets to ‘reserve’ a space) and the day of (i.e. lines,
> turning people away etc.) I’m already getting calls from people who are
> interested and don’t want to get shut out, but frankly we’ve never managed
> sign-ups for anything larger than groups of 20 people or so. Now that I
> have written this and jinxed the event, we will have about 10 show up…now
> I’ve done it. Well, if you have any good ideas, please write to me and
> share them anyway. There are always future events I have not jinxed yet.**
> **
>
> ** **
>
> Thank you for your help!****
>
> Mo****
>
> ** **
>
> PS We don’t have a meeting room so these events are after hours. We have
> to close the library to get set up, people have to wait outside for that to
> happen, and we do not offer library service during the program as that
> would interrupt the program. Not ideal. Just so you have the big picture…*
> ***
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
>  ****
>
>  [image: cid:image001.jpg at 01C9ADFB.2325B4C0]****
>
> *Maureen Cole*****
>
> *mcole at orcity.org <mcole at ci.oregon-city.or.us> ** *****
>
> *Library Director
> Oregon City Public Library
> 606 John Adams Street
> Oregon City, Oregon 97045
> 503-657-8269 ext 1010
> 503-657-3702 Fax*****
>
> *Website:** www.orcity.org/library*****
>
> *PUBLIC RECORDS LAW DISCLOSURE: *****
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-- 

rich.wandschneider at gmail.com
josephylibrary.blogspot.com/
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