Velocity Circus - Heliopolis

by Tania Seabock

I have been anticipating seeing Heliopolis for weeks now. I had never seen a “real” Velocity Circus performance. So far it had only been an exhibit of their works and performances at the De Young Museum in San Francisco.

I have to say: Wow…what an amazing performance it was!!! Friday night was more then I had expected. They had scheduled a 3 day event for Valentine's Day weekend.

The night began with beautiful choreographed dancers, a very funny funny clown, snake dancers, there was a fire performance and a sword fight (that freaked me out). My favorite was seeing whirling dervish act of Gregangelo himself….WOW, WOW, WOW….is all I have to say about this act!!! I knew he was a pro at this but honestly this act was one of the highlights of the night!!

Gregangelo’s costume spinning during his dervish performance is AMAZING!! I recommend seeing one of Velocity Circus's performances. In fact a Velocity show should be one of San Francisco's must see's!

Heliopolis - Publicity Behind the Scenes

Do you hear that buzzing sound? It could be the return of bees to your local flower field. It could be the electrical circuits racing through the electric lines above your head. Or it could be people talking about the amazing Heliopolis show that just took place at the small and intimate Randall Museum Theater.

I haven't blogged in a while, so I'll discuss the event production a bit. After conceptualizing the event's theme and general goals, the initial work was securing a venue for the dates of the event and touring the facility, which the Randall Museum graciously arranged with us back in December.The next step was preparing publicity materials, including a press release, locating a graphic designer to make the smooth, eye-catching images for flyers, posters, invitations, and whatever else necessary to make the event look and be appealing to the intended audience.

Identifying the audience was also part of this and can be one of the trickiest parts. We wanted to reach as wide a segment of the population while also paying attention to smaller subcultures. To do this, we used imagery that we thought would appeal to a women as well as men, straight as well as queer. We also targeted advertising in areas of San Francisco and the East Bay where people already interested in circus and dance, whether primarily as watchers or also as performers, were likely to see it. This included eateries in "hip" areas, dance studios, universities, and community centers. We utilized Web 2.0 tools like Facebook and Youtube to help us get the word out to friends and past clients of Gregangelo. In addition, we contacted our press network and received coverage in the local newspapers, as well as very brief notes on television and on the radio.

Once people began buying tickets, we got a better picture of who our audience was and adjusted out marketing approach slightly to reach certain segments of the population, notably other artists and people with Middle Eastern/Mediterranean background or interest. During the last two weeks, we also placed quite a number of telephone calls to friends, work associates, and businesses to encourage the purchase of pre-sale tickets since we preferred to handle as few transactions at the event itself as possible. With her years of subscription sales experience for such notable arts organizations as the SF Ballet and the SF Opera, Lorna Zilba helped us significantly during this aspect.

Thankfully, we did not need to devote much time to recruiting volunteers, partially because the space itself was not very large - a 150-seat theater attached to a small museum. Our existing relationship with FIDM, the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandizing, also helped. Most of our enthusiastic volunteers that weekend came from FIDM. Partnerships are indeed important in helping make productions successful.

Photo credit: Holly Stewart. Poster design: Taylor Collins