“I'll sing this song now and that will get it over and done with. Early on in the evening and that'll give you a chance to forget.”
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We have 6 guests online| Baggsy List for Jakefest 2008 |
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Hail and Well Met, Thacksters all ! This is the official call for Baggsy Lists. If you want to play up to three songs at the Sutton Coldfield JakeFest, you are invited to mail malcolm (dot) jeffrey (at) virgin (dot) net with your "baggsy" list of the songs that you can do, in your preferred order of song. This year, however, there are a few changes, and I'll explain after. If you want to play a set of up to three Jake numbers at the Fest, we need you to : a) Tell me all of the songs that you can do (including those on the list above), in the order that you would prefer them to appear in your set. To help distribute the really popular ones fairly, you will only get one from this list - Sister Josephine Brother Gorilla Bantam Cock Leopold Alcocks Jolly Captain The Hole Worried Brown-Eyes Lah-Di-Dah The Lodger The Bull On Again ! On Again ! - and as many close to the top of your list as we can. b) Tell me if you want a full set of three songs or if you would prefer a shorter set. c) This year you have until Jun 21st - three weeks from today - to mail me and then the entries will be closed : there will be no "first past the post" (or "first in Malcy's In Box") order of preference. Instead, we'll be allocating songs more randomly with a series of draws, and also using a ballot to help determine which player performs at the matinee or on the evening performance. And here's why ! The JakeFests have been running in one way or another since 2002 and started off as a means of satisfying one of the original aims of the Jake Thackray Project – to get Jake's songs performed in public again and to allow performers to learn and play his songs. In this respect it has been particularly successful : early gatherings had one or two performers, but with the Project's success in getting Jake's recordings back in the shops, and on the radio and television, the number of performers has grown steadily. At the last JakeFest in Scarborough we had approaching twenty players, many first-time performers, and there is now a potential pool of over thirty players who have performed, either intermittently or regularly, at the JakeFests. In the past, we have attempted to get everyone on who wishes to play, and by a policy of first-past-the-post baggsy lists and careful allocation of the songs requested it has usually been possible. However, if a large percentage of the available players submit baggsy lists for a JakeFest in the future, there is a risk of having to turn people away or make the sets so small – one or two songs – that only the most hardcore player would cross the country for a 10 minute spot. At Scarborough, with twenty people, we tried to keep to three songs each but both evenings overran, even given a 7:30pm start and an 11pm finish to the show. With sets of three numbers each and maybe only room for 40 songs on an evening, there is, practically, only room for 16 players on any show and we are in danger of exceeding those numbers now that the Fests are so successful. So we've tried to come up with a fair, new system which allows as many people as possible to perform, given the numbers of players we currently attract. The main thing we can do is to, wherever possible, include a "matinee" performance, which will double the size of the potential cast across two shows, and we're doing this with the Brum JakeFest : and the existing baggsying system is fairly well established and usually allocates a player most of their requested set. However, we need a fair system of deciding who gets to play in which of the two shows : the first-come, first-served emailing system has always favoured people who check e-mails and message boards more regularly than others who may only check once a week, so that was overdue for an overhaul anyway, and more so with the increasing numbers of players. Some of you may know that I'm a Marathon runner, and it struck me that a similar way of allocating spaces in an oversubscribed event to that used by the London Marathon could be used. When entering the London Marathon, priority is given to people who have been rejected more frequently over recent entries, and a time limit for applications followed by a lottery-style draw for places is employed. So here is our plan ! The baggsy list for the 2008 JakeFest is now open, and interested performers are invited to mail me at the above address with your preferred set lists, in order of preference. If you do more than three songs, let me know all of them, as it makes dishing out songs easier if your more preferred songs are already gone, but three songs will always be given as a spot unless you wish a set of two or one songs. You have until Jun 21st - three weeks from today - to mail me and then the entries will be closed. :o) The usual list of songs which are so popular that everyone wants to sing them still applies, so you will only get one of the following songs in your set, as close to the top of your order of preference as possible : Sister Josephine Brother Gorilla Bantam Cock Leopold Alcocks Jolly Captain The Hole Worried Brown-Eyes Lah-Di-Dah The Lodger The Bull On Again ! On Again ! This is primarily to allow any new players with a smaller repertoire to still have songs left that they can sing by rationing out the famous ones that we all started off with. "The Bull" and "On Again !" are included because they are the two songs often chosen as a grand finale, so if you pick one of these and it gets chosen for the finale on that show, you won't get the song as an individual song in your set. Then we will draw a random list of players for each performance. If you would prefer to play on the main night or on the afternoon show, please indicate this in your e-mail. This is the part where we try to satisfy the needs of the audience as well : more recently, the fests have been attracting paying members of the public (who will be expecting a predominantly slick show) as well as those of us in the groundswell of the society, so we feel that the selection of players for the evening show should favour a higher ratio of more experienced players, while the earlier show should be more of an open-mike affair for all-comers. Any players who find that the draw has been unkind to them and they've been asked to play in the earlier show (I've been accepted by the London Marathon ballot 12 times and rejected 13 times) will be given preference for the main show of the next fest, and all attempts will be made to guarantee their choice of set there as compensation. Yes, I know it's not perfect, but there are simply too many people potentially interested in playing on a JakeFest nowadays to get everyone on on the one bill with a decent length of set. The Draws will be made using separate input from several people to have it as transparent and above board as possible. |