Note: I wrote this about a year ago for a friend of mine who wanted to start a venue, please excuse my mess till I get time to revise it and categorize it:

Here's some tips I learned from leading a venue called Session A at Cal Poly Pomona University. About the time the venue got sponsored by the school after jumping around to different locations, we lost our planned budget because of the state budget crisis (had to drop its first concerts!), and since have slowly regained it back. So we have a little bit of every kind of experience a venue could have, from budget to none at all. Every community is unique, so of course, the Session will reflect that. These are just framework tools that can be applied.

REMEMBER, when doing Sessions as opposed to Concerts, we're not creating anything! All we have to do is take out barriers for people to do their own thing, this is the essence of Sessions. Less stress, more fun, all about them and not you. Also, don't try to do all these tips at once, you'll kill yourself and your audience, build up to it and use when you think its ready...

Show the Schedule: It's good to let your audience know what's going to happen throughout the night so they don't feel trapped. Would you like to have a lot of people who don't want to be there or a few people that are super hyped about what's about to happen? They might leave and come back, but this way they won't miss something they want to be a part of, so the audience will be a satisfied one no matter the size. You can do this by projecting a written schedule using power point or printing out one and taping it to each table so people have something to look at. The best way is to give in hand print outs, bulletins, this way you can give them something they can bring around with them as well as tell them about the next event, etc. But this method takes the most time. You don't have to be on time or even specific about what you're going to do (leave room for being flexible), but just having something kills a lot of unneeded fear.

Hosting Tips: Be responsible for only about three hours at most and let everything else just happen. That means, organize enough in case people don't do anything, but not too much in case people have another plan.

At Session A, we divided up our time three major parts:
1. Sessions (Open Mics, Open Tables, Open Floors, Open Minds)
2. Competitions/Trivia/Special Features
3. Guest Performances

Use vendor merch to grab attention and get people ready for a performance or to get out their seat. Leave announcements for the end. I'd recommend not reading out loud the the schedule much unless needed, but instead keep referring to the written out one. Don't use terms that are confusing so whomever your audience is can feel like they can join in. If you're going to do freestyling, its best to initiate yourself or start someone off. We're the TV generation, people's attention spans are way short. Diversify your attention getting and use the mic for important transitions and announcements so it doesn't become just a guy who keeps talking through the event. I made this mistake a lot, I just held the mic and kept saying non important stuff, it devalues the mic. Learned that from my partner G.

Interact with crowd, explain events and schedule. Use slogans to convey a simple value of the venue, like "Positive Hip Hop Movement" or "Open Mics, Open Tables, Open Floors, Open Minds." These give the overall concept so people can tell other people what the event is about. Ask questions to get the vibe of your people, but if they involve long answers bore everyone else for one person, just say speak to me after. Above all, speak truth in love by having a heart of serving.

Target your audience: To have a target doesn't mean you forget about everyone else, it just means that's who you start with. If you start with general Hip Hop crowd, you'll get most of them. That way you have a large pool to find core people. This is called building outside in. But always have a way for passionate people to get involved and form a team. We called this at Session A, the A-Team... (write more here)

Be consistent: Sometimes this is a hard option because we don't own our own venue. But it's key to being a place where people can feel open to go and take refuge with trust. People will often also prepare for sessions if you are consistent and thus stay out of crime and trouble because they're busy working on their freestyle for Thursday night at your spot... So it's ideal to get once every week and just cut the event to essentials (no performances just sessions), but even at Session A we had a hard time doing this. At most, it happened every other week, though we tried and dreamed. But where I've seen it in other sessions, there's something real special there. I know a lot of venues that do it once a month, and people don't miss it because they know it's the first weekend or whatever. Art colonies do this too, I suggest if your event is in a place like that to sync your schedule to events around it. Nothing better than free publicity.

Ambiance: ALWAYS have music running, if not with a DJ, have instrumentals playing from a mp3 player or something. Keep lights dim, but good enough where people can see each other, we ain't clubbin! If anything, we're the anti-club, we're open to everyone. We want to give a balance of anonymity and acknowledgment so the least amount of fear can exist. Fear of being noticed, fear of not being noticed.

Best Sound: This is a given, if you don't have a guy who knows how to handle sound, better find one. Best also if the venue has already their own sound, cuts down dramatically for setup time and ensures it works there.

Seating and Space: I recommend having seating, even though if its a Hip Hop session, especially along the walls. A lot of audience is brought by participators, and there should just be that option. If you're going to use tables, put something on them like a book to write in or reading material (good place for advisories too). I remember one time when we moved into a bigger room for Session A it seems WAY EMPTY even though we had about the same amount of people. Be sure to cut your space to the essential so you can not only be more alive, but to have more control over what goes on. "HEY, what are you smoking in the back?!" As for staging, for Sessions I recommend not having much of any, maybe just a slightly lifted platform. If you want people to feel free to approach the DJ or mic, it has to be accessible. I found when we switched to a room with a stage, people didn't want to even get near the stage area unless we gave them some free stuff. Loosely define your area so the most possibilities can happen. We want people to try out elements too, its hard to do that when everyone is staring at you. One of my favorite locations Session A was at was the games room on the college campus, we had a forced audience of pool players with a false wall net so everyone could see us, ambient lighting, and a nice clean floor for breaking as our whole grounds for the event. You could pick anywhere to break! If you want to know what you should change, look from the perspective of someone new visiting.

Have info tables: Try to keep all the promotional materials in one place. Many people are "street teams" and will try to toss their flyers everywhere, instead you can say dump a pile in one place and have an excuse for having them not bother the audience. The info table should be near the entrance and can include events you sponsor, future information, bibles, quick info about the venue and its history (pics) and how to get involved, and a person that can answer questions. This is also a good place to chill, get people who are walking by to come in, or look out for vandalism outside the venue. The area is also good for selling merch or having merch tables all in one area for easy shopping. People tend to linger when shopping so its best not to put it in an area where people are sessioning.

Few Game ideas: Name who sampled (Name that break was too hard), finish that verse, and basic Hip Hop trivia. DON'T MAKE IT TOO HARD. Have them run to you to say it on the mic if you think there's a lot of people who will know the answer. This will also get them out their seat and move, it's also fun to see people yelling it and running over people just to get a shirt or CD. This is a great way to build knowledge in history and reward it with sponsor merch. When was the last time you got rewarded for doing something you love? People need to learn how to take their energy they waste on hatting and encourage and uplift what is good. Don't waste your time saying how it is, say how it could be instead! I'm getting off topic, but this is what the positive Hip Hop movement is about...

Competitions: Ideas for competitions go here. Mic Skillz (mc battles are hard to keep positive), DJ Battles, Beat Competition, Breakers Battles.

Short Promotion: Don't discount promoting the day before or on the day of the event! Lots of people can retain words like "Tomorrow" or "Tonight!" In the beginning of Session A, we did this on accident because we had no budget for flyers, so we cut some papers and handed them out or even just held a sign and talked to people. This was way better than just having a poster somewhere, because handing them out gave direct line communication that could answer questions and be vocal/loud (we're fun like that). This was best in teams of two that can cover entrances to a high traffic area and not seem alone. Its also good if you're a Hip Hop Session venue to demonstrate what Sessions are, you could get a boombox and start a small Session in the streets, this way you're having fun while promoting the essence of the event. Why also waste time doing stuff that will be torn down or washed away (chalking). If it's also on the day of, it can be directional like arrows that will tell people where to go.

Connect with your people: Vandalism, Trash, & Drugs. These three ways of disrespect are quick ones to get you booted out of any venue host. The best way we've learned to cut all this is the best way to do a lot of other things that would create a healthy venue, get to know your guests.

The #1 thing EVERYONE asks when visiting: "Is there anyone else like me here?" Can they belong? You do not have to be doing an element to connect with someone.

Don't expect them to act like everyone else there, some people actually just like to watch and not participate or just seek their part. People on your team might be in different elements of Hip Hop Culture, but they can ALL be greeters. Try some eye contact and even give a pound or a touch of the shoulder, this can be sometimes all the contact people get all week by other people. And if that's so, they'll be back and maybe start to care because you tried to care.

Things you can ask... (also good survey of your promo)

1. Names? This is important, if you don't remember, keep asking. Names show you want them as regulars.
2. How'd you hear of us and this event?
3. What area did you come from?
4. Do you practice any of the elements, which ones?
5. What do they think of the event? etc. etc.

We had a vandalism problem at Session A, they tagged the bathroom mirror (etching), put stickers up in weird places, markered a railing, even wrote on a trash can which we turned around so no one would notice... All this, and we usually knew who it was. Usually it was a crew of people or the odd guy who was high and didn't know where he was. In the case of the crew, it wasn't until we gained some amount of respect of that crew by knowing their leader and talking to him. They did take down their stickers once when we asked, then we didn't have much a problem for a while until new people came (that crew was like half of our audience, haha). We also gave them something else to keep them occupied so they wouldn't do that, such as a sketch books (don't give pens, they have them already). To give them incentive, we scan or took pictures of the sketch book and had it on a slide show to resemble the old school days of graffiti on a train. People could come expecting to see their piece in rotation and be like "that's mine right there!"

We ended up putting signs up in the most likely places for vandalism, in the bathroom and alley ways, that read RESPECT: YOU can help Session A @ Cal Poly
from being SHUT DOWN (or something like that). This put us on their level, we're Hip Hop too, not some oppressing authority! We also did "patrols" where we would alternate people checking the bathrooms. At Session A we had a team that would be known under their chosen skill, this way breakers would talk to breakers and djs to djs, etc. At one point we even had people where pins saying what element they were, but I think a hand written name tag would suffice. If you have people wear name tags, make sure everyone does, including the guests, so they aren't singled out. It is good however to also point out who are the venue managers that help out so there is a loose form of authority and person they can ask questions. At the end of the event, it's good to call out a simple action to keep the cleanup quicker, one person take one piece of trash as they leave if they could, and thank them. Usually, they'll take theirs.

Once respect happens, then you must give them a way to be more involved. Its the only way to grow up in Hip Hop culture and serve more people as the event grows. Volunteers are important because we're all ignorant - just on different subjects.

Other stuff I'm going to get to one day...
Temperature: Worry about this if you get too much people. Battles get hot.
Water: People are way more confident to mingle and stick around when they're holding a cup in their hand.
Donations: Announce donations are mainly expected by regulars who call the session their home.
Response cards & Surveys: Know your community & better yourself. No event is perfect and people keep changing.
Slide shows: I got tons to say on this...
Promotion: And this...
Team building: And this too...

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