(#29b) Santa Monica Festival (June 14, 2014)

August 15, 2014

Aurora with dancersThis also doesn’t yet conclude #29. Why, you ask? Because I got paid. So, I never expected this to conclude #29. And that’s all good with me.

But I thought I’d share it anyway, because I found the festival to be interesting.

I got the side gig at this festival because I’d volunteered at the Santa Monica Airport Art Walk.

I have learned through all my experiences (and through the wise words of Sutton Foster in an interview I did with her for my school paper) – you never, ever, ever (ever) turn down work, if you can take it.

(By “if you can take it,” I mean don’t blow off gigs you already have. But if you’re free and anyone offers you work, you take it because you never know to what it might lead.)

Funnily enough, this event actually led to my police ride-along!

So, there you have it. You always take every job offered to you. Period.

(Side note: It was interesting to be paid hourly again. I was actually a whole lot better with money in the couple of weeks following this event… Not that I’m usually bad with money or anything. But, every time I thought about anything unnecessary such as a coffee or some gum, I’d think “that’s this many minutes of my time. Is coffee worth that?” So, that was cool. Perhaps I should work hourly a bit more often.)

As far as the actual work portion of this event, I don’t have anything wildly interesting to say. I was co-stage-manager of one of the smaller stages. Groups came and went. People were nice and lovely. It was good.

I mainly just wanted to talk about the festival itself. I thought this was such a cool idea! Does every city have a festival like this? ‘Cause this was the first one I’d heard of.

There were booth telling you how to save energy, how to take the metro more often or ride your bike. There were places where you could meet your local government officials (with cool coloring books explaining how legislation worked, so that was kind of awesome).

The library had a booth, as did places offering language classes. Basically, there was tons of stuff you could learn about to improve your life and the lives of those around you in your city. I thought it was a genius idea, and I’m so glad I was invited to work there!

I'd love to hear from you! So whaddya say?