In the past, we have had organizational resistance to putting our Festival Schedule online. Folks were concerned that potential competitors would be handed a veritable blue print for what we do and simply copy our program ideas.

However, this year, we are committed to an open source model and so here it is – a pdf version of our program over the next three days. You think the Festival is just a program? It’s so much more. it’s a community that rallies its resources to make this happen, it’s untold unsung people who gave freely of their time, it’s donors and organizations and bands and maintenance people and hard friggin work. You want to reproduce what we do? Go right ahead. Best of luck. As for the rest of you, check it out and see what’s happening!

Such a bargain for you!

This is one of the questions we get asked the most and I am uh… pleased to say that the answer in all cases is “unequivocally yes.” Every attendee at Jewlicious costs us between $150 and $200. That covers the discounted rate we pay for the JCC that hosts the event, expenses associated with speakers, expenses associated with bands, transportation, food expenses etc. etc. We charge as little as $36 per person for the entire weekend because we don’t want money to be an issue with regards to participation. Even then, if someone flat out can’t afford it, we’ll always find a way to get them to the Festival. But we’re not Birthright Israel. Heck we’re not even Oranim. In this era of free trips to Israel, we even get people calling from out of town asking if we subsidize air fare! I mean we’d love to be in a position to do so but, well, we’re not. I could throw myself at Michael Steinhardt’s feet and assure him most sincerely that there are in fact ample hookups at the Jewlicious Festival but that would be, I don’t know, undignified? And as everyone who knows me knows, I am if nothing else, the very model of a modern uh… dignified man.

So yeah, bottom line, those of you trying to figure out our budget? $150-$200 a head. That’s pretty cheap and definitely does not include all the blood, sweat and tears expended by our awesome volunteers, committee members and community leaders, all dedicated to making sure that our participants have an awesome Jewy weekend. Now go and buy your tickets today!

I promise you are not paying retail!

This year’s Jewlicious Festival, our 6th in as many years, is going to be an Open Source event. What does that mean? Well, allow me to explain. From day one, it was our fondest hope to run similar festivals in other cities. To date however, the only Jewish community that has been able to get it together enough to host a Jewlicious Festival has been that of Long Beach, CA (and this year Los Angeles as well). The Festival has been otherwise successful beyond all our original expectations, attracting young Jews from across the US and Canada and top notch speakers and musical acts from around the world. Why hasn’t Jewlicious spread beyond Long Beach? Maybe it’s because we’re just exhausted. Maybe only Long Beach can muster the necessary, albeit modest resources and communal will to make it happen. Maybe it’s because people continue to assume we’re a Chabad Kiruv organization. Maybe we just suck at writing grant proposals. I don’t know.

But this year, we’re going to do something different. We’re going Open Source so that anyone who cares to can follow along and learn about what it takes to run the largest Jewish Student and Young Adult Festival in the world. And I promise you, it’ll be interesting. Seriously.

So what am I working on now? About a zillion things, but for my first Open Source Post I decided I’d write about t-shirts. Seems like a pretty straight forward issue, right? Wrong. Every year we print up a mess of commemorative t-shirts, hoodies and other apparel. Everyone loves a good t-shirt and we figure if folks wear the shirts after the festival, the wearer essentially becomes a walking advertisement for us, the organization.

Everyone gives away t-shirts using the same logic and so do we. We even try to make the shirts cool in and of themselves and that informs our design decisions and our decision to use American Apparel products. Those shirts are hot – well designed, comfy and beloved. But every year it’s a struggle as there are cheaper alternatives to American Apparel and we are an extremely budget conscious Festival – I spent an hour today trying to find Chinese Parasols priced $1 less than commonly available, thus saving us… $50.

I told you we were budget conscious.

But I digress. So the formula for a successful organizational shirt is 1) great design – something that is reflective of the organization but that is also cool to wear on its own after the Festival 2) great t-shirt, one that people will want to wear after the Festival and finally 3) Politically correct/Environmentally friendly. It wouldn’t do to have Festival goers wearing t-shirts manufactured in 3rd world sweat shops.

This year I looked for alternatives, just so I could say I did my due diligence. The Progressive Jewish Alliance publishes a list of Apparel manufacturers that are Sweat Shop Free. Curiously, the list does not include American Apparel. But it does include manufacturers whose unionized workers get paid less than the non-unionized workers at American Apparel. It includes manufacturers with boring, unimaginative and really expensive shirts, or manufacturers who do not make t-shirts, or manufacturers who are slowly winding down their business etc. etc. Basically, no one on the list was a suitable alternative. No wonder so many otherwise progressive Jewish organizations also use American Apparel. And I think we’re going to be one of them. Again.

Right now I’m negotiating with American Apparel for as good a price as possible on shirts. And I am working on a t-shirt design inspired by something I saw on Yellow Rat Bastard. Soon maybe you’ll see it. We’re also going to print some of the ever popular “I <3 Hashem” shirts and maybe some new “I Am Jewlicious” shirts that’ll help alter the impression that we’re Chabadniks. Because we’re not. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

I guess I was supposed to blog yesterday – but I got home VERY late from a family trip to Disneyland. Even a festival director has to make time for his family on occasion .

Working the Festival from the Happiest Place On Earth was surreal.

I was walking through Disneyland fielding calls about posters, sponsors, speakers, last minute stuff. Looking out on the small winter crowds, we noted there were a lot of other Jewish families running around because LA Jewish schools are on break this week.

But why couldn’t I put down the phone for a few hours and enjoy Mickey and Friends in full force? It is inevitable.

We always get tons of requests to be involved in the final weeks leading up to the festival.

And some of these are legitimately cool folks that want to be involved. So we juggle and dance around, and see if there is somewhat to get them involved. Sometimes we can make it happen and sometimes not.

Then there are the bands. Bands and more bands. They all start calling and emailing us before the fest wanting in.

The only problem is that we start booking bands up to six months in advance. Six Months!

And while there are last minute substitutions, we can’t fit in any unknown acts at the last minute.

Someday we will be able to have a whole stage just for up-and-coming Jewish artists. That is my dream.  However in our current venue, it is really unlikely.

We are signing up with Sonicbids to handle band submissions for future Festivals. I hope that this will streamline the process of band submissions etc.

And as far as last minute other folks, it can be easier to stick them on an existing program, salon, workshop.

Talk to you soon!

This year’s Festival is going to be very exciting and groundbreaking in many ways. One of the innovations we are instituting is our plan to make the Jewlicious Festival completely open source. Many have been awed by our ability to produce this kind of Festival – particularly impressive are the numbers and diversity of our attendees. Now we will offer our Web site visitors an inside look into the inner workings of one of the most unique events for Jewish students and young adults out there.

Today we are doing our THIRD printing of the Jewlicious Festival 6.0 postcards.

Postcards in and of themselves are a necessary evil. While much of our promotional material is online – actually almost all of it – we need to create fliers to distribute at events. Yes it eats trees, and we try to do things as eco-sensitive as we can:

A few things we have learned:

• Print locally – saves on gas, shipping, and you can actually meet your printer.
• Soy ink is everywhere and very eco
• Use non-petroleum based aqueous coatings
• There are no %100 recycled content postcard papers that we could find
• We don’t print with an area for postage – who can afford to mail these things!
• Pass designs around, people have great suggestions and catch mistakes

Also postcards don’t get distributed too well when left in piles in random places.

The best way to distribute event fliers and postcards is to have people HAND them around at events, concerts, etc.

If you want to distribute the latest postcard – send an email to avie at jewliciousfestivals.com