My team fills their paper plates and finds seats around the conference table, where I’m sitting with Jayme to my right and Spencer to my left, with a blueberry bagel of my own. When Spencer came in this morning, she informed me that she’s going to bank the day off I offered, and I immediately agreed. “Thanks for coming this morning. I know it was a long weekend with a lot of mental and physical work, so I’m glad you’re here.”
There’s a murmur of agreement.
“I’m going to turn the floor over to Spencer because she was the one leading the charge from the get-go on this.”
I gesture to Spencer, who dips her chin at the recognition. She pushes her blue frames high on her nose and shuffles her notes. “Thanks, Carson. The festival itself went smoothly as far as implementation goes.” She runs through a laundry list of items, each with a virtual check mark of success. “So, from set-up to teardown, I felt like it was a solid plan that was workable and manageable.”
She glances to Kyleigh, who’s sitting slightly behind her and confirms the assessment with an eager nod. Kyleigh’s also banking her day off, and I’m proud of her. She’s going to learn a lot working with and for Spencer.
“We did have one issue with a nervous artist, but it was resolved and the show began on time. It actually gave us an opportunity to have Toni Steen dance onstage, which was an unexpected bonus that brought an extra touch of that Americana Land family feeling to the festival.” She smiles at me, making the near catastrophe sound like a prize toy in a cereal box. “And that section of the show was a complete hit.”
I note that she leaves out any mention of Taya and her fierce pep talk, which I appreciate. Taya’s see nothing, hear nothing, know nothing proclamation still stands.
“Any feedback on event implementation?” I ask the table.
Stephanie raises her hand the way she always does when she’d like to contribute. “I was on the frontlines with the vloggers I was hosting. The only thing I noticed in particular was the water supply. I think we would’ve been better off providing free small cups at water stations throughout the park in addition to the water bottles we sold. I understand the profit margin is higher on sodas and bottles, but with the heat and dancing, I think we should consider safety first, and dehydration could be a potential concern. This is something I’d recommend adding to our summer concert series as well, especially given those attendees are . . . uhm . . .” —she clears her throat uncomfortably before finishing carefully— “a potentially more at-risk demographic.”
I make a note of that on the yellow pad in front of me because it’s a great point. The Freedom Fest attendees were young, but active. The summer concert series guests are usually older, and though they rarely dance, the heat is significantly more serious during those months. “I agree. I’ll make sure that gets on their project notes.”
Stephanie smiles. “Thank you.”
“Okay, well as Maury would say, ‘the results are in’. Padma, can you go over the analytics with us?”
She glances down to a yellow Post-It note, and it strikes me as a bit sadistic that my fate, as well as that of Americana Land, can be reduced to a few numbers on a piece of paper that’ll end up in the trash. Hopefully, that’s not a bad sign.
She rattles off a bunch of metrics about site visits, engagement on social media posts and pictures, clickthrough rates, and hashtag usage. But all that detail obscures the bottom line until Jayme interjects. “Really? Great! What about the user generated content from the festival?”
Padma grins, leaning forward as though she and Jayme are having a private conversation. “I was saving the best for last! We’ve had so many posts, photos, and videos that we’re filtering them into a separate section on the main website, and we added a tab on the blog header specifically for the festival because the video of Jazmyn Starr and King’s Krossing . . .” She pauses dramatically, looking around the table to build anticipation. “It went viral!”
“What?” I’m shocked. I got online yesterday before going to Jayme’s and saw the positive outpouring of comments about the festival, but I never dreamed any portion of it would go viral. “What does that translate to numerically?”
Padma flips her Post-It note over. “As of an hour ago, the video had seven million views in just over twenty-four hours. 7,200,018, to be exact.”
Jayme jumps up and dashes around the table to Padma’s side. “Can you pull it up now? What are the real-time numbers?”
Her eyes are bright with excitement as Padma clicks on her laptop to refresh the figures. “An increase of sixty-three thousand in an hour, give or take. Would you like the percentage change?”