CF Lives 2019 Ideas Topic

[jayjay]

Fully Organised Trips

Another benefit of these is that it lowers the barrier for less experienced members. My first Euro Live (Finland 2013) was the first time I'd ventured abroad on my own, but all I had to do was fly to Helsinki, meet up at the airport and then fly back after we were done.

 

[MouseAT]

Another benefit of [fully organised trips abroad] is that it lowers the barrier for less experienced members. My first Euro Live (Finland 2013) was the first time I'd ventured abroad on my own, but all I had to do was fly to Helsinki, meet up at the airport and then fly back after we were done.

It definitely helps take the pressure for the passengers. For anyone who isn't confident with making your own arrangements (particularly where a language barrier is involved), isn't confident with driving abroad, or isn't able to drive for whatever reason, the prospect of a Euro Live can be quite intimidating.

I'd like to add that the pace/timing of some of the Lives probably puts some people off driving. So far, I've only hired a car once in Sweden, and found that I didn't really mind driving over there (at least, with an automatic gearbox), and I'd have been quite happy to provide transport to anyone else who needed a ride to the same places at the same times. However, a lot of the Lives in the past have involved very early starts and/or late finishes, with 2+ hour drives either side of long, tiring days, and with the medication I'm on, there's no way I can sustain that sort of pace and drive safely in unfamiliar conditions. On several Lives, I'd not have been able to handle the demands of driving, or at the very least I'd have to be very careful about where I chose to stay and how I chose to break up the trip.

A coach. This would be amazing, and take the responsibility off anyone. We'd have to get BIG groups, but if we're pushing to the Chat group I don't think there's any reason we couldn't quickly ramp up the numbers to the 50 or so you'd need to make this work.

Even if you couldn't get the numbers for a full coach, I'm sure the idea a minibus with hired driver has been bounced around in the past. I always though the idea of a minibus full of CFers sounded like a really good laugh, as well as a solution to the practical problems of ferrying around a medium sized group of goons.

 

[Ben]

I don't think the price for a minibus with a hired driver would quite justify it, as I think that'd be on the steep side (he says, pulling this out the air so don't hold me to it) but you can get a small coach which is 30 people, which I think would be a viable option and honestly we wouldn't struggle to get to 30 people if we publicised it properly and from early enough.

We have over 5000 people in the chat group, please the Forums - 30 wouldn't be hard to get back to at all.

I think 50 for a proper coach would be doable - the ECC do it and our Chat group has double the amount of their actual page, and five times as many of their group, so we're much more popular.

 

[MouseAT]

I don't think the price for a minibus with a hired driver would quite justify it, as I think that'd be on the steep side.

You're probably correct, but it might still be worth comparing with the price of a few hire cars plus fuel. I'd expect it to be more expensive, but the question is by how much, especially split across a group of say 15 people. If the difference wasn't too horrific, I'd be prepared to pay the extra for the convenience.

Of course, if you can get the numbers for a proper coach, and the price is reasonable, that's a no brainer.

OK, this would take someone that's not me cause lord knows I hate filming :emoji_poop: - but make vlogs. @nadroJ is churning out great vlogs for her channel, if it's just for Lives there's no reason we can't do the same with the amount of us on here. Then you've got something to show people that weren't there exactly why they were missing out and make them want to come to the next one.

I know the early videos were a big factor in selling me on the "fun" element of CF Lives. I still try to do one every once in a while, but I tend to favour photographs rather than video at parks I've not visited before. Even at a familiar park where I choose to try and do a video, sometimes it just doesn't come together if there aren't many antics happening, or I just can't catch them on film. Case in point, Blackpool this year. I got some good ride footage, but that by itself wasn't enough to make a compelling enough video.

 

[Ben]

I know the early videos were a big factor in selling me on the "fun" element of CF Lives. I still try to do one every once in a while, but I tend to favour photographs rather than video at parks I've not visited before. Even at a familiar park where I choose to try and do a video, sometimes it just doesn't come together if there aren't many antics happening, or I just can't catch them on film. Case in point, Blackpool this year. I got some good ride footage, but that by itself wasn't enough to make a compelling enough video.

The answer to that is to get people presenting and splicing that in - make sure you get enough interesting people footage that any 'antics' on top of that are extra. If TPWW can be interesting to viewers I'm sure we wouldn't need to worry at Lives.

 

[TilenB]

Another benefit of these is that it lowers the barrier for less experienced members. My first Euro Live (Finland 2013) was the first time I'd ventured abroad on my own, but all I had to do was fly to Helsinki, meet up at the airport and then fly back after we were done.

It definitely helps take the pressure for the passengers. For anyone who isn't confident with making your own arrangements (particularly where a language barrier is involved), isn't confident with driving abroad, or isn't able to drive for whatever reason, the prospect of a Euro Live can be quite intimidating.

This. From someone who isn't exactly great friends with anyone that attends European lives and doesn't live in Britain to meet up with people for local lives, I do feel the current arrangements are a bit unwelcoming in a way.

If you just have a quick look at the most recent ones. Energylandia doesn't have any public transport options in low season and the only viable option (apart from taking a cab) was to hire a car, which would be a bit prohibitive price-wise for someone like me (Uni student, under 25, etc.), while most of the CFers that know one another irl making their own arrangements, with their (rented) cars mostly full (as seen by @caffeine_demon's struggles to get a lift to the said park).

I think there was sort of a similar problem on Ghosterforce, with the schedule being a bit tight, so the people who travelled around by buses and trains spent more of their time stressing around how to get from one place to another in time, rather than having fun...

 

[Lofty]

I'm completely with Ben.

Serena has been doing a great job at trying to keep lives going - but at this moment in time it's like flogging a dead horse. It needs new life putting into it. More perks, potential of coaches etc., would work so well? You could have so much fun with everyone on a coach and truly create some great bonding experiences. I do believe that it needs looking at again - it could actually be a bit of an earner for CF if run properly, instead of it being the same people going on trips together that would've gone together anyway but call it a CF live?

 

[Snoo]

Honestly.. what Ben said. We've been pushing around what we would like to try and organize Stateside and while we don't get much traction on the forums, I know kicking around and pushing several local meet ups would do wonders for numbers. While we all love this tiny little community, it simply is dwindling to extinction.

While we are definitely different over here, we typically try and cater to have as many people as possible, especially if it lines up like that. The Live at CP was a great example as we were able to get a number of Europeans as well as a large number of North Americans going as well.

Setting hard dates and advertising early will be what you need to do.

 

[Ben]

Honestly.. what Ben said. We've been pushing around what we would like to try and organize Stateside and while we don't get much traction on the forums, I know kicking around and pushing several local meet ups would do wonders for numbers. While we all love this tiny little community, it simply is dwindling to extinction.

While we are definitely different over here, we typically try and cater to have as many people as possible, especially if it lines up like that. The Live at CP was a great example as we were able to get a number of Europeans as well as a large number of North Americans going as well.

Setting hard dates and advertising early will be what you need to do.

Interestingly, that poll that I put in CF Chat has got an American Live soooo far ahead over any of the others. That group is full of Americans just ready for mining.

I mean, I think it'd be pretty clear who'd need to take lead on anything State side - you.

 

[Snoo]

Interestingly, that poll that I put in CF Chat has got an American Live soooo far ahead over any of the others. That group is full of Americans just ready for mining.

I mean, I think it'd be pretty clear who'd need to take lead on anything State side - you.

I already have some thoughts a brewing actually, including some fun 21+ fun (dumbass drinking age) because of the podcast. I definitely know we're having a Live somewhere in the states, just need to figure out where specifically. Talked to @GuyWithAStick and I know he wants to do SFGAm because why the hell not. I would LOVE a mix of both USA and UK Lives every year, make us a truly global brand as one will always help the other from a visibility standpoint. And I'm 100% in to make that happen as well.

 

[Ben]

SFGAm is a good shout - mix it up a little, but is a super central park for people to be getting to.

Agreed we need to look at making it Global, and America really is an untapped market for us - we've always dipped our toes into it but never really done more than one a year to help it to grow.

Now, how do we go about assembling the task force to actually get these things to happen?

 

[Luca B]

I would definitely do Walibi Holland / Bobejaanland in July for the live, but not in October. Also the last few GFs have been in that area, so somewhere different would be nice.

 

[GuyWithAStick]

I'm all for a US Live, or Lives even. If we want to expand the brand, we definitely need more public lives Stateside. Perhaps a few smaller, 1-2 park lives sprinkled throughout the year with a major one in early summer? The Kennywood-GAm jaunt sounds like a great, huge way to get a load of US people on board. We could then do a few weekend trips at 'hub' parks like CP, SFGAdv, SFMM, etc.

One of my main concerns is how we'll manage finances. Assuming we are going to be following the TPR-style trips with upfront, all-inclusive payments, we need someone to manage the cash. CF doesn't have a designated bank account(as far as I know), and having one person manage dozens of people's payments is not ideal. There's a lot to think about.

But I'm still on board with everything that's been said. Expanding the lives to social media would be awesome. And a busload of goons sounds so amazing.

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[Lofty]

It's worrying that you're trying to take a leading role in organising USA trips and you don't even know that CF is a credible business, makes money from YouTube revenue and has the opportunity to make a lot of money from other sources that (as of now) are just not being tapped into because people can't be arsed to do the work for?

 

[Ben]

I'm all for a US Live, or Lives even. If we want to expand the brand, we definitely need more public lives Stateside. Perhaps a few smaller, 1-2 park lives sprinkled throughout the year with a major one in early summer? The Kennywood-GAm jaunt sounds like a great, huge way to get a load of US people on board. We could then do a few weekend trips at 'hub' parks like CP, SFGAdv, SFMM, etc.

One of my main concerns is how we'll manage finances. Assuming we are going to be following the TPR-style trips with upfront, all-inclusive payments, we need someone to manage the cash. CF doesn't have a designated bank account(as far as I know), and having one person manage dozens of people's payments is not ideal. There's a lot to think about.

But I'm still on board with everything that's been said. Expanding the lives to social media would be awesome. And a busload of goons sounds so amazing.

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There is an account - back when the Europe lives were all co-ordinated and sorted for us we would all pay into an account and that'd be used, it would be the same concept here (although we'd need to look at setting up a local USD account if you ever did it in America).

I think personally diving head first into a big US live like that might be a little run before we can walk - but a small scale one of something like SFGAm to Kennywood could work with that set up? And do it whilst we're building the brand both sides of the Atlantic and in the future you can smash it.

 

[GuyWithAStick]

Oh I'm not doubting that, I'm just not aware of any central bank account for CF specifically. I'm well aware we make ad revenue off of YT, I just don't know where it goes to.

If you think I'm unfit to lead this thing, I understand. Someone else with more experience is more than welcome to organize everything. Like Ben said, @Snoo would be a nice fit.

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[Ben]

I'd always back Snoo as 'lead' but he can't do it alone and it's not really at the point where we can be like 'you should be involved, you can't be' - anyone is welcome at this stage as far as I can tell! I'm not even sure having someone 'in charge' is the best way to go about it - it should be a team. If you have a lead and it's all on their shoulders, your thing is only going to be good as long as they can be arsed with it.

But yeah - I'm sure there probably is a USD account somewhere, but setting one up would be easy. There's always going to be an element of trust for the people sending you money, but, I'd say we've done it enough times before it'll be fine. That's probably why I'd start with small trips - £300 for a Europe trip is easier to convince people to give up than £1500 for a two week America trip ha.

 

[SilverArrow]

Maybe we could "appoint" a couple of people as Europe trip planners and a couple as US trip planners who work together to organise trips? Then it's not just Ian, Serena or whoever but a combined effort with input from threads like this one from everyone else? They could do the stuff like emailing parks, choosing the dates and help publicise the trips on the facebook group etc. I think someone has to take the lead to finally decide on dates (because you'll never please everyone) but maybe making it more than just one person do every trip plan (like when people are waiting for trip threads to be made because maybe only one person makes them) might make the load lighter and give the potential for more things to be organised in the future.

That is one thing to note, the threads need to go up sooner (not a dig at anyone!) so that people can plan in advance and see who else is going etc.

 

[Youngster Joey]

For what it's worth @Snoo does great work planning trips, but with @Antinos trip planning is like ****ing cocaine for him . It's definitely tougher in the US as we're so spread out that we'd need to have people all over the country planning local meetups not just in one region or another. I think there are definitely respected US members who can do it but it might take more time to plan the behind the scenes stuff before moving forward.

Edit: Looks like @SilverArrow was thinking along a similar wavelength

 

[Hutch]

Being stateside and still relatively young, it's awesome to hear to there's definitely some interest in a US Live (possibly multiple). I know this site has a strong European membership, but I'm actually a little surprised US Lives haven't occurred more often than like, once every two years or so.

As I've mentioned previously, I'm hoping to drive out to the Midwest and back next year, which sounds like the place to be (obviously will depend on work schedule and if I could get time off). I haven't exactly taken the time to sit down and organize/research everything (will need to very soon), but it'd likely to be a solo trip for me. And I'll be honest, driving to Chicago and back to Boston for my first major solo trip does sound a little intimidating. I've done plenty of long distance driving, but certainly not at a scale like this. I'm prepared to do it though.

So that being said, the idea of a big goon bus does sound great. It encourages everyone to travel together and could make the journey far less exhausting and boring for some people. I already kinda accepted that I might just end up driving but this caught my attention. So definitely worth looking into.

It's great to see all these thoughts poured together on how to make improvements. For me though, as someone who's never been to a Live and, within the past year or so, really gained an interest in making an effort to meet some of you folks, I'm now really looking forward to hopefully attending one of these. Even just chilling and dicking around sounds like a good time (@Snoo, you mentioned some "21+" stuff... I'm down lol).