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Philly Tech Week is upon us! Kicking off on April 20, PTW will showcase dozens of events in the Philadelphia region. See the full list of events here.

TicketLeap President and COO Tim Raybould will be presenting at “Mobile, Marketing and Ecommerce” on Friday, April 26. Tim will give a lightning talk on how the TicketLeap platform is taking advantage of mobile tracks. The event, hosted at Urban Outfitters HQ, will focus on innovative business trends happening across the web and in Philadelphia. Admission is free!

  

How is Philly Give & Get different from your regular fundraiser?

Most “regular” fundraisers are not as overt about the transactional nature of philanthropy. In other words, what is the donor getting for their donation? Our event benefits everyone – the winning bidders get to learn a new skill, the Experts expand the community’s knowledge of their work, and all the proceeds go to charity. It’s a win, win, win situation.

How did you select PCAT as your charity recipient?

We selected PCAT because it is an amazing program! There isn’t enough space on this blog to talk about how impressed I am with the work that the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Technology is doing. It’s a very effective program, and because it’s located way up in Northeast Philadelphia, I don’t think it gets as much love as some of its Center City peers. We hope that this event is a platform for more arts and technology entrepreneurs to find out about PCAT, and donate their time, talent, and treasure to them.

Fun events are a great way to get new people involved in charitable causes that they might not normally find out about. I’m passionate about events because I’m passionate about philanthropy. I want to make sure that my generation of Philadelphians become enamoured with our nonprofit community. I want them to fall head over heels, bonkers, IN LOVE with donating time and money to organizations that are working everyday to make this city the amazing place that it is. Unless our generation finds a way to make philanthropy fun, people aren’t going to give back as much as they could. It’s that simple.

Do you have any horror stories from events that didn’t go so well? 

Absolutely. When I was working at an arts organization that hosted a large annual festival, our closing night party was almost a disaster. On the night of the event, Philadelphia has a freak snow storm…tons of rain and sleet and nasty winds and ice. Attendees were encouraged to wear costumes but when they showed up, they were drenched and cold and Not Happy. However, we had a great DJ and an amazing photographer in attendance, and the staff banded together and just made the decision to have a good time. The party ended up being fun and boisterous and memorable, and we got tons of great photos. The next year, the closing night party was a hot ticket!

Main lesson: go with the flow! Once the event is in motion, there are several things that are completely out of your control…and the weather is certainly one of them! If the event organizers stress out, the volunteers stress out, and that stress infects the attendees. However, if the event organizers are having a great time, the volunteers will be excited, and the attendees will have fun. So let go, and enjoy the party!

Dylan Ladd, 18, discovered his passion for singing when he was only in the seventh grade. The Chicago suburb where he grew up has a community that encourages local youth to explore their talents, prompting Ladd to bring his after school activity of “choir” to the next level faster than you can say “break a leg!” Now the high school senior throws performing arts events for his group Project Two all on his own. Impressive, no?

(Ladd, third from the right, poses with the rest of Project Two.)

How did Project Two get started?

I wasn’t ever interested in Music until middle school when I started choir. My choir teacher encouraged me to audition for the musical, which got me interested in musical theatre. The first musical I ever saw was Jersey Boys. I loved the show so much because it was so relatable, being a guy with a high singing voice. I showed my friends back home and we instantly fell in love. We started a singing group called The Jersey Kids, modeled off the musical Jersey Boys. It was pretty cool, since we did it all on our own. We were able to meet all the actors from the Chicago company of Jersey Boys, and we even booked a few shows. All was great, until the producers of Jersey Boys found out about us and had to request that we stopped performing due to copyright infringement (the name, songs and dances). We changed our group name to Project Two, as it was our second endeavor in performance groups, and added an assortment of Broadway shows to the repertoire.

How do you juggle Project Two and school? 

It is really difficult to balance it all. On top of school and Project Two, I am involved with the high school theatre program, and I direct the after school men’s chorus. I also work 25-30 hours a week at Best Buy. This group is something that I love more than anything. When you have a passion like that, you just do what you can to make it work. I find myself using any moment of free time I can to come up with new ways to promote the group, or new things to add to the show. I’d love for Project Two to become something big. Especially since it’s so unique in its style. Plenty of kids have started bands, but were different. We’re good kids that love theatre. We all are leaving for college in the fall, but we hope to stay in contact, and continue rehearsing and performing all around.

Where is your favorite place to perform?

We perform anywhere someone will take us. We’ve done shows anywhere from the local Culvers fast food restaurant to the High School Performing Arts Center. We’ve even been main stage performers at our local Fall Festival for two years in a row. Our favorite place to perform is a retirement community of over 6,000 residences in Huntley called Del Webb Sun City. They have a theatre that fits about 500 people, and we sell out every time. The people there are so welcoming to us, and they’ve given us the support to want to keep doing this for years and years.

How does TicketLeap fit your needs as a performing arts group?

Among researching ticket providers for our concert, TicketLeap seemed like the perfect fit for us. It has such a user friendly interface and is very inviting to ticket purchasers. The ability to track sales and add discounts has been essential to some other decisions such as what sound companies to use and things like that (because ticket sales is our only source of income). Its seamless integration with PayPal has made tracking net sales incredibly easy. Plus, the integration with mobile devices such as iOS and Android is going to play an incredible part in our ticket sales and check in process at the door.

Do you have any words of wisdom for kids who dream of pursuing the performing arts?

Take the advice that you hear over and over again from anyone that hears you are interested in performance–if you love it and put your mind to it, you can make it possible. You have to take things like that into your own hands to make your own dreams come true. I’m confident that if my group keeps trying, and has the right determination, the right person will see us and help us make our dreams come true.

The Spring 2013 season starts April 20. Are you ready?

Get your season or single tickets by clicking on your favorite team name below.

Boston Whitecaps                 Portland Stags

New York Rumble                 San Francisco Dogfish

Philadelphia Spinners            Seattle Rainmakers

Washington DC Current        Vancouver Nighthawks

Christina Down is the Community and Outreach Director at Fair Food. Below she tells us a little bit about the nonprofit, plus a few tips on how to spread the word of your upcoming event. Hint: communicate and make connections!

Where did your passion for “homespun foods” begin?

Fair Food was founded in 2000 by Philadelphia entrepreneur, Judy Wicks, to build a sustainable and humane local food economy by spreading the local purchasing practices of her restaurant, White Dog Cafe. Ann Karlen, founding director of Fair Food, began her work by connecting the local farms supplying the White Dog to a larger marketplace of restaurants and stores, while continually bringing in new farmers.

Fair Food started with the narrow focus of connecting farmers and chefs as a strategy for keeping more farmland in production, and now works with a broad range of buyers, as well as hundreds of producers, from small-scale diversified farmers to midsize growers who supply colleges, hospitals, and other institutions.

Over the past ten years, Fair Food has built demand for local food across all sectors of the food system. Along with our partners in the field, our work has created a paradigm shift in the public’s perception about what we eat by shining a spotlight on the men and women who grow our food.

What was the process like to turn your passion into an event?

Bill Colaveski, founder/owner of Victory Brewing approached Fair Food nine years ago and said, “I have a concept for an event, and I want the proceeds to support Fair Food!” The idea of bringing together craft beers and locally produced food was unique and exciting, and Fair Food was eager to collaborate with Victory. The Brewer’s Plate was born!

How does your team work together on the day of the event to ensure everyone stays calm and check-in goes smoothly?

Constant contact and communication. For weeks now we have been ironing out logistics, assigning responsibilities, etc. There will always be “fires” to put out, but the key is not letting the guest ever realize that. Smiles everyone, smiles!

The Brewer’s Plate has been getting a ton of buzz on Twitter. How did you start spreading the word and what do you think made the event “go viral?”

There was a concerted effort to push through social media and we decided that early on. In many ways social media is its own form of “word of mouth.” We are lucky to have supporters that come every year and know it’s one of the best eating and drinking gatherings around.

Overall, we’re lucky. The participants of The Brewer’s Plate are really amazing and enjoy the fundraiser. Fair Food is about making connections, and we hope that this event provides a great forum for not only the guests’ enjoyment, but to also connect artisans with chefs, producers with retail buyers, etc. Shake hands, have fun, bottoms up!

The Brewer’s Plate

Sunday, March 10th at 6pm

The National Constitution Center

Philadelphia, PA