Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 08:05:51 -0500
From: pony@mail.utexas.edu (Phil West)
Subject: nps post-mortem (long post)

Dear Poets:

Before we say anything, let us extend our thanks for your participation in

the 1998 National Poetry Slam. It was a honor to host the

largest Nationals in history, and we're grateful that you put forth the

effort necessary to congregate in Austin and perform here. The response

from local and national newswriters, the capacity crowds at many of the

venues, the glowing reports we've received from local attendees, and the

new benchmarks established for both group and individual pieces are all

reassuring testaments that what this gathering of the Slam Nation did in

Austin over those four days in August was nothing short of astounding. Many

of us worked extremely hard to create a place and an audience for your

performances, and now that we've had time to recover and a chance to review

our efforts and the results of our efforts, we'd like to share our

perspective on the Nationals with you. We're proud of the accomplishments

and innovations we made, and we hope that future National Poetry Slam hosts

consider these facets of the '98 Nationals in planning their own. We're

also aware that there were some elements to this year's Nationals which,

given the chance to turn back the clock and do it all over, we would have

improved, and we definitely hope that future National Poetry Slam hosts can

learn from our experience. We want to wish Chicago and Providence all the

very best as they take their turns at bat. Have fun, and get your sleep in

advance. We also want to send out mighty props to all of the previous NPS

hosts. You helped create the monster that we were happy to wrangle this

year.

We have an incredible amount of people to thank. First off, we want

to thank all the volunteers who helped us put this on, especially Sonya

Feher, who coordinated all the volunteer efforts, and Marty Kruse, who was

an incredible help behind the merchansiding table. We want to thank all the

MCs and house managers for their work in making the show go smoothly,

especially those who went above and beyond. Monica Copeland, for instance,

signed on to help the week before Nationals, and ended up house managing,

MCing, and callibrating bouts in the same week. Sean Shea's van blew up

Thursday afternoon and he still made his house managing gig on Thursday

night. Some MCs and house managers, especially Kim Holzer, Allison Durazzi,

Jim Nave, and Deb Marsh, should be applauded not only for their work at the

bouts, but for their behind-the-scenes work and heartwarming moral and

personal support at every stage of the process, including those long-ago

days where we were just proposing Nationals. We'd like to give a special

nod of thanks to Danny Solis, who supported us even before we told the

community we were going to make a pitch for Nationals, and painted

scoreboards for us the day before Nationals started. We'd also like to

thank Taylor Mali, who was a complete prince and an invaluable help to us

throughout the week, going above and beyond countless times, bringing us

sushi and good advice. Special thanks to the Executive Committee for their

work in steering slam, and to Paul Devlin for his brilliant documentary

which is bringing slam to a wider audience than we ever thought possible.

And of course, we have to thank the Smiths: Marc Smith for making this

whole thing possible in the first place, and Patricia Smith for gracing us

with her voice, her words, and her spirit. We were honored to share the

stage with you on Saturday night.

Now, without further delay, some thoughts on this year's Nationals ...

45 teams:

Before we get into what we're happy about and what we would have

improved, we have to talk about admitting 45 teams, because a lot of what

we're happy about and what we would have improved is intrinsically wrapped

up in taking on the largest Nationals ever produced. When we made the pitch

for the '98 NPS at the '97 Slammasters meeting, our original plan was for

36 teams, a modest increase from Connecticut's 33. Deb Marsh, looking at

our proposed number of venues and bouts, asked at the '97 Slammasters

meeting if we could bump the number up to 45 at the '97 Slammasters. We

thought it sounded doable, and although we pulled it off, it took us even

more effort than we'd counted on, and we'd counted on giving 110% effort to

Nationals no matter how many teams ended up in it.

To give you some perspective, bumping up to 45 teams was a 36

percent increase from last year, compared to a 22 percent increase from '96

to '97. It was ambitious, and overall, we're glad we did it, for we were

able to bring a significant number of first-year teams into the fold. It

gave us a lot of additional work on all fronts, from application processing

to score tabulation to the sheer logistics of it all. Given the intensity

of managing a 45-team Nationals, we understand Chicago's and Providence's

inclinations to scale it back. But now that you've all got a taste of

Nationals, we're willing to bet most of you would like to make this a

regular pilgrimage rather than a one-time deal. Given the press this year's

Nationals received, it seems like we might even have more than 45 teams

interested next year. That's something we all have to think about. If it is

scaled back, how will the issues of team eligibility be dealt with? Do we

only take teams generated from an ongoing slam series? Do we make it an

even more urgent first-come, first-serve situation than we had this year?

We all need to think about this even before we talk about it at '99

Slammasters. We have opinions on the subject, and plan to chime in, but our

opinions aren't any more correct than any others. Maybe some of you think

45 teams are too many. Maybe some of you think they're not enough. But now,

at least, you've seen what it looks like.

Pre-slam administration:

For the most part, we're happy with the job we did. There were

additional demands placed on us as organizers this year, demands that we

met long before we greeted you all at Opening Ceremonies.

As you know, we were assigned the task of registering all competitors with

Poetry Slam, Inc. and collecting fees for the organization. We were

assigned the task of enforcing more stringent team eligibility standards,

which, as you know, required some form of open competition to determine

team members (except in truly exceptional cases). We were doing this for

the largest body of competitors ever assembled at a single Nationals.

Without the cooperation and free flow of information many of you provided

us, this could have been a nightmare task.

Although your cooperation helped us greatly, there were questions

about team eligibility in some cases which continue to linger. Please know

that we made extraordinary efforts to police these increasingly stringent

requirements. We logged hours (literally) of phone and e-mail time, and

engaged in extensive discussions with team organizers and community

members, in order to insure a roster of teams with memberships entirely

decided through local slams. In some cases, we made requests on team

organizers to restructure or hold additional competitions to determine team

membership, and those teams met the requirements that we placed on them.

Although we sought to enforce the rules, a task made incumbent on us by the

slam family, we also strove for inclusion within the framework of those

rules. We're very happy that each and every team participating in this

year's Nationals was included. We realize some of the teams were harder to

get onto than others. But as a result of our process, we maintain that all

45 teams met the nationally-established guidelines for eligibility. Since

this issue ties into the question of how many teams will participate in

future Nationals, we encourage you to weigh in with your opinions about the

guidelines. Some of you might want to relax them. Some of you might want to

make them even more stringent. From our experience, we can tell you that

they should be enforceable and clear-cut, as they were this year. We may

need to make an official protest procedure and review process available,

should other poets question a team's eligibility, and we must design the

time frame so all questions about team eligibility are decided before

competition begins. We addressed concerns about a handful of the teams

competing this year as we were alerted to eligibility questions by other

poets, but we could use an official clarification of this process, in order

to help everyone understand what the procedure is and the proper time frame

for implementing said procedure.

The joys of innovation:

You've got to like the signal cards, right? When we brought the

idea up at the '98 Slammasters, we feared we'd be unleashing new confusion.

But you were pros, and the system made for smoother communication between

the MCs and the teams. We'd like to see the system continue in Chicago,

Providence, and beyond. We're also pleased with the Vanna Whites. We know

there's a lot of tension hovering around a Nationals scoreboard. Take

Thursday night at the Lounge for instance: Austin vs. Albuquerque vs.

Vancouver. Seeing our hometown heroes go up against our best friends in the

Slam Nation and those stylin' Canadians was a heart-in-throat experience

for every Austinite in the room, but somehow, seeing Ken Hunt dressed as

the Good Fairy Of Winter at the scoreboard mitigated that tension. We're

extremely proud of El Poeta, and the mild-mannered man behind the mask had

the time of his life. (Incidentally, his own mother saw the TV ad and

didn't recognize him. Now THAT'S a costume.)

On a more serious note, we're extremely pleased with the way the

protest committee worked. We heard five protests over the course of the

competition, and the mechanism we put into place (which utilized two

representatives from the host committee, two Executive Committee members,

and an additional rules expert) allowed us to deal with some potentially

inflammatory controversies in a measured, diplomatic, and comprehensive

way. Deepest thanks to Deb Marsh, Maria Kusznir and Taylor Mali for your

service on this committee. Thanks also to Nave for late-night wisdom.

Some modifications probably do need to take place to help this process run

more quickly, and we'd advise future hosts to keep primary organizers off

the committee so these people are able to get some sleep. But we thought it

all ran very smoothly, a sentiment echoed even by people who ended up on

the "losing" end of a protest committee decision. The protests that were

lodged, for the most part, were substantitive enough to be heard, which

speaks to your understanding of both the rules and the inherent limits in

what this protest committee could do with respect to resolution and

changing unsatisfactory outcomes. We appreciate your judicious use of the

protest committee mechanism, and we hope future hosts use this as a means

to resolve any controversies over gray areas in the rules that our

community can manage to unearth. We would like to add that a number of

issues that were brought up in protests were issues that could not be

effectively dealt with at the time but that will definitely end up on the

agenda at Slammasters' in Chicago.

We're also proud of some of the improvements we made on past ideas.

The poet badges looked great on you all. The website, thanks to Ernie

Cline, was stunning. Our design team ruled the planet like a

Godzilla-Mothra tag team. We thought one-minute team intro pieces were just

the right length, and seeing all of you in room at Opening Ceremonies will

remain one of our most beautiful memories, even when we're wreaking havoc

at the nursing home in 40 years.

Production:

Putting the largest poetry slam in history on stage required some

major effort. More bouts. More venues. More chances for things to go

haywire. Running six bouts at a time during the first two nights would've

been impossible without the Herculean efforts of our production team, the

six-person crew of butt-kickers you saw dashing from venue to venue

yammering at one another over walkie talkies. We took a lesson from the

annual South by Southwest Musicfest and did our darndest to take production

as seriously and professionally as possible. This allowed us to fight the

fires which were inevitable with such a large tournament. For example,

thirty minutes before showtime on Wednesday night, we received word that

not one but two sound systems had suffered severe technical malfunctions,

and a third venue's sound system was not quite what the club's owner had

promised us. We ... innovated and made the show happen, and although some

bouts went on a little late, disaster was avoided. Running a high quality

show on time was a huge priority for us, and we think that we did a pretty

good job. For those of you that had to wait a few minutes here or there,

we apologize and thank you for your patience. Due to these last-minute

adjustments, a couple of the venues were unable to support four microphones

on the first night of competition. We had that fixed by the second night

and are sorry for the inconvenince. We also wholeheartedly support the

idea that some sound gear (mics, stands, etc.) be acquired to travel from

NPS to NPS.

The Scoring Program:

Sigh.

Before we go into this, we must extend an apology to the Ozarks and

Santa Cruz teams, who we originally thought were in the semifinals, and

announced as such before discovering the disheartening flaws in the scoring

program. Here's an explanation of what happened:

We used an Excel program, which took manually-inputted scores, each

occupying their own "cell" (box within the spreadsheet grid), and plugged

them into a formula to generate team and indie standings. Keep in mind we

were dealing with scores from 194 poets for the first two nights, pulling

them off paper scoresheets. We were unable to begin until we had all the

venue binders in hand, meaning inputting didn't start until midnight. Our

programmer, who was on site at headquarters for score tabulation, noticed

problems with a few of the cells as we began data entry on Wednesday night

- problems that had not emerged in preliminary system checks. A few of the

cells were transferring data to the wrong place, and a few of them had

formulas that were slightly incorrect. No problem, we thought. We fixed

those minor problems, and saved them into the computer. Only the computer,

for some reason (a virus, we think), wasn't saving all the changes, and was

changing new cells in the process. Not awesome. Wednesday didn't go too

badly - there were a few minor errors in the original posting, which we

were able to detect pretty quickly. Thursday, however, required adding

Wednesday's ranks and scores to generate semifinal matchups, and that's

where we had our Freaky Friday. Manhattan didn't end up in the original top

18 because their Thursday night score wasn't added into the equation. That

was a pretty easy fix, which is why we caught it pretty early into our day.

The Mission District score, however, was more deceptive, because some other

team's Thursday score ended up in their equation, and rather than having a

212.8, they were listed as having a 209, which put them below 17th place,

which is where they really were. Once alerted to that, we went back and

tabulated all the potential semi-finalist competitors' scores by hand, and

through a triage process that couldn't have succeeded without a supreme

effort of coordination, communication, and adaptability on the part of the

poets, we were able to get the information out several hours before the

bouts. Naturally, we would have preferred the program to work as designed.

On Friday night, we simply tabulated the results by hand. At that point, we

were only dealing with 18 teams, meaning six bouts instead of 15, and that

wasn't a problem.

By the way, some of you probably read on Poetry Channel that

Jeffrey McDaniel was told he was in the indie semi-finals Friday afternoon

and then was told seconds after that he wasn't. That had nothing to do with

the scoring program - that was due to a time penalty which affected his

rank in the Thursday night bout. A double check of the scoresheet from the

bout revealed that we were right the first time, and the momentary

hesitation over whether or not he was in was due to our sickening despair

over the scoring program errors. By the way, we'd like to take this

opportunity to say that Jeffrey McDaniel is one of the nicest people on the

planet, and a damn fine poet to boot.

Note that we're donating some money toward generating a scoring

program that travels from NPS to NPS, and hope that this money, combined

with some of the Poetry Slam Inc. funds generated through registering this

year's Nationals competitors, allows us to premier this new and flawless

program in Chicago next summer. Some of the brightest computer geeks among

us are already at work on designing a scoring program. We can offer

suggestions as to what it shouldn't do; namely, it shouldn't give the

organizers heartache and ulcers. Again, our sincerest apologies for the

confusion.

Your concerns from the Saturday morning meeting:

A number of you, as we went around the room on Saturday, had some

specific concerns. A number of these have been dealt with in the above

paragraphs, but there are a few which evade the larger categories above, so

consider this a catch-all section.

"What happened to my poet bag?" -- Most of you received your poet

bags no problem. Those who were late to Opening Ceremonies or chose not to

brave the line for bags before Opening Ceremonies started were a small yet

unlucky group. Our volunteers did a wonderful job making sure each poet got

one bag. Unfortunately, there was a breakdown at the end of Opening

Ceremonies, when our volunteers had finished doing their jobs. The

remaining bags, including those intended for organizers (including

Juliette, who, incidentally, rocked the planet like a hurricane to procure

all the poet bag goodies), were stolen out of the room where they were

being housed as people left Opening Ceremonies. We're sorry if you didn't

get a bag. If it makes you feel better, we didn't get ours either. For

those who got free bags and were not entitled to them, we would like to

tell those people, if we knew who they were, that we hope you're enjoying

them, but know that you're enjoying them at the expense of someone who paid

a registration fee. And before you start telling us that you were a

slammaster/coach/fifth member/jedi master that deserved a free bag, please

note that we do value and appreciate your work, but we were only able to

print and fill enough bags for the registrants. Once again, 45 teams.

"Why was there a communication breakdown?" - We know that, as the

week went on, it became near-impossible to reach us by phone. This,

unfortunately, was an unforseen by-product of running a show which involved

194 poets. We had to priortize our efforts in making the show run as

smoothly as possible as well as addressing your concerns, and phone

communication was something that unfortunately fell by the wayside.

However, we had a trio of co-organizers,a production team, and a number of

volunteers on-site throughout Nationals, and plenty of you were able to

find us, talk to us in person, and have your concerns addressed - something

which a number of you noticed and have thanked us for already. We will pass

on all suggestions and ideas that we, and others in the community, have

generated, in order to provide future NPS hosts with the necessary tools to

keep all communication channels open. The quick list (an info list showing

the contact numbers for everyone while they are in town for Nationals), for

instance, is a brilliant idea, and would allow not just the organizers, but

all the poets involved, to keep in contact with each other.

"Why didn't we house all the poets at one hotel?" - 45 teams. Our

goal was to find hotels close to the downtown bout sites that were

affordable. We wish that the Austin Motel had room to fit everybody, seeing

as they were completely wonderful, but they didn't. We're quite happy that

we found hotels so close to downtown that were affordable, especially since

most of the chain downtown hotels were more expensive than you would have

liked. Trust us on this one.

"Why was there a country band playing next door at my venue" -- One

of the semi-final venues, La Zona Rosa, had another show going on in their

concert venue which was audible through the walls in the club side where

our bouts were taking place. The band was a touring act, Riders in the

Sky, which was booked long after the club was signed up for nationals.

When we discovered this, we considered trying to find another venue, but

felt that we couldn't sign another club within walking distance of the

other venues that would've provided the same quality stage, sound, and

audience as La Zona Rosa. Anyone who had the pleasure of performing there

knows that it is an excellent space. At any rate, after long discussions

with the club's ownership, we decided to stick it out. They arranged for

additional sound insulation, shut off a few doors that would usually have

been open, and cranked up the P.A. in our room as loud as it would go.

There was still a little bit of bleed over, but we feel like it was

acceptable. Kudos to the competing teams and MC's for making the best of

things. Also, everyone should realize that the way that the club was just

trying to make a living.

"Why wasn't there a 5th pass for coaches or alternates?" -

Tradition, plus we didn't want to increase the $300 registration fee for

teams. We felt, with the $10 Q-Pass and the availability of half-price

finals tickets, that we gave coaches and alternates cheap and viable

options for getting into all the venues. Please realize that the expenses

involved in putting on a Nationals are huge, and that it is a slippery

slope to start expanding the number of free passes that are given away. We

do understand your concerns. NPS Co-director Mike Henry has been a 5th

member/coach for two years. Remember that not all teams bring their

slammaster or any extra folks with them. The way that it has been handled

to this point is that if you want to have the benefit of those people with

you, expect to pay for them. We're sorry if anyone felt slighted by this.

Since representatives for the next two Nationals were in the room when this

was brought up, they know this is a concern area.

We think we've addressed the concerns brought up on Saturday, not

counting the rules, which have already been started on by the community via

e-mail. The key is for members of the slam community to come up with viable

rule changes which can be voted on at the next Slammasters' meeting. Use

the web, use your phones, write letters, send up smoke signals ... This

will be especially helpful for those of you who are unable to get to

Chicago next spring and intend to submit votes via letter or proxy. If we

didn't address your specific concern, we apologize. We were moving into our

third day without any sleep by Saturday morning (which was preceded by

several weeks of hardly any sleep), and some of our notes are more basic

than they should be, such as "gray area," which indicates that there was

some sort of gray area (well, obviously), but we can't tell if this is from

Danny's comment about gray areas or something more specific. Speaking of a

shiny gray narrow area . . .

The silver lining:

As difficult as it was to orchestrate a Nationals involving this

many participants, we had one of the least contentious Saturdays on record,

starting with a Slammasters Meeting that showed a gratifying display of

maturity among those who participated, featuring one of the most exciting

and dynamic NPS Finals in history, and culminating with a party that had no

fights, no bitterness, and plenty of stylin' dance steps and positive

energy, not to mention free beer. We're very proud of what happened

throughout Nationals, and Saturday was a great day for all of us.

This has been an amazing experience for those of us who organized

this event, and we're extremely glad that you chose to be a part of this

year's Nationals. As you know from the e-mail traffic that has followed

Nationals, there's a great deal of thought going on about issues that

emerged, but by no means have been resolved, at this year's Nationals. We

implore you to remember that we are, indeed, a family, made up of poets who

feel deeply and excel at verbal expression. If you have thoughts or ideas

about how to improve the slam, we suggest you show up at next year's

Slammasters meeting in Chicago or write your ideas out for a proxy

representative who will argue your points for you. Although the Executive

Committee is a body designed to oversee the growth and direction of slam,

the changes in direction that they make begin with you, and are voted on

democratically by all assembled poets whenever we gather together. If you

can't make the trip to Chicago next spring, submit your votes or arrange

for a proxy. It's important for you to be involved in these decisions,

especially if you've entered into the debates.

We'll be at the next Slammasters' meeting, and we're happy to share

our accumulated hindsight and new knowledge with anyone who wishes to know

more about what running the '98 NPS was like. We're most happy to do it

over a beer or three. In conclusion, we'd like to tell you something you

probably already know: we've never worked harder in our entire lives, and

we couldn't have worked any harder than we did. Like the past NPS

organizers that inspired us to take up this cross, we sacrificed basic

personal needs in our devotion to the work you've done as poets and the

institution that we've come to embrace as the future of poetry in America.

We worked as hard as we possibly could for you, and in turn, and you all

made it worthwhile. Finally, some of you have asked us if, after all the

work and insanity, would we do it all over again? We say . . . you betcha.

We thank you deeply, hope to see you soon, and hope that you harbor fond

memories of those four days in Austin, for we definitely do.

See y'all in Chicago,

Mike Henry, Juliette Torrez, and Phil West