| A heated battle between venues that advertise on public signboards along 17th Avenue S.W. has been cooled down thanks to a one-day "Poster Summit" last Thursday. Summit organizer Greg Curtis (programs director for MacEwan Hall and MacEwan Ballroom) invited a dozen venue operators and local promoters to discuss postering etiquette.
"Postering – particularly on 17th Avenue – was getting out of hand. It’s a prime spot and those are the crowds everyone wants and where the battle was taking place," Curtis explains. "There were too many people covering up other people’s posters. People pay to have these posters printed and pay to have them hung and they only stay up 10 minutes before someone comes along and covers them up."
Club operators established rules of conduct concerning street property, such as limiting the number of posters a venue can have on a single signboard and removing out-of-date posters as a way to create more space. The meeting gave people a chance to air their grievances and alleviate some of the animosity between venues.
"Even if it tones things down a bit on the poster wars, that’s great," says Curtis. "Everyone got a chance to meet face-to-face and know each other as human beings as opposed to ‘that guy who owns that club.’ We came up with a master list of communications and hopefully it’ll lead to co-operation between the clubs in town. Now if there’s an issue between two clubs, they can talk to each other and if there are any larger problems we can all meet again."
|
Copyright ©2005 FFWD. All rights reserved.