Overall, my NQC experience was a good one. I enjoyed my time spent meeting the artists, fellow bloggers and hanging out with my old friend from home most of the week. I certainly loved the concerts and performances on the main stage. The vendor hall was busy and kinda cramped for walking space, but I think the renovations on the convention center will be completed for NQC next year, so hopefully that won’t be an issue in future events.
Now for my recommendations for next year. These are for attendees, as well as for vendors and those planning the event.
1. Bring in a food vendor that serves healthier options than a deep-fried Snickers bar, fried chicken or blooming onions. I actually ate at the coffee stand most of the week because they had fruit bowls available. What a concept…….
2. Stop allowing peddlers….er, artists….to have mini-flea markets at their booths. I actually heard one “artist” saying that if they didn’t sell the….ahem….’lovely’ framed Jesus print displayed prominently at their booth that they would have to put them back on their walls at home. Perhaps I can see selling the jewelry or maybe even the clothing, but what does pawning your worthless junk at NQC bring to the event. Other than a new level of trashiness, nothing that benefits the event.
3. For those attending the event, when you pack your bags, be sure to bring along your manners. If you decide to bring them, you should try using them. I’ve often heard it said that “Christians” are some of the most rude people to deal with and I tend to agree. Many NQC patrons would rather run you over than say “Excuse me”, much less saying “Please” or “Thank You”. After talking with some of the employees running the concession stands and driving shuttles from hotels and such, it’s no wonder Christianity gets a bad rap. Most of these hard working people dread NQC week because the majority of our “brethren” are elitist snobs that are too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.
I’m not saying that everyone was rude. In fact, I met and talked with some great people while standing outside of the auditorium in between concerts. However, the majority of the crowd were just too focused on pushing their way through the lines for ice cream cones, nachos, & sodas so they could get back to their seats to be seen uplifting their hands while singing along with ”I’d Rather Be An Old-Time Christian”.
4. NQC – keep doing what you are doing. Although this was my first year, I understand from many people that I talked with that it was one of the smoothest events to date. Keep striving for professionalism and keep pushing artists to raise their standards of excellence, so that maybe one day, Southern Gospel will start getting more respect from the secular world. Make the artists that appear on the main stage be the best that they can be. I know that everyone has different tastes in music, and I enjoy the Inspirations as much as I do the Crabb Family, but making the Inspirations use a soundtrack for their performance during the awards ceremony was an excellent move. Although I highly respect Martin Cook and what he has done for gospel music, this allowed the event to stay on schedule.
5. Have someone check the booths selling old, out-of-date projects to check for pirated copies. I like to think that most vendors don’t know what they are selling poor, CD-R quality reprints created from Joe Blow’s handy dandy CD duplicator with lightscribe technology. I know for sure that some of the CDs by the Hinsons & Kingdom Heirs at these booths were cheap, knock offs. The cover art had fringes from the perforated paper used to print the artwork. Even projects from 15+ years ago used better quality material than that.
It might even be a good idea for the artists to visit these booths and see what projects of theirs are being sold. I have a feeling some artists wouldn’t like what they find.
6. My final recommendation ——————– another bloggers conference next year. :-) Maybe even let spouses have a pass too. (Seriously!) Also, allot maybe another hour and invite a few artists to participate as well. I know McCray Dove has his own blog with his recent post being a pretty good article about bloggers. Maybe next year the roundtable will be more productive, instead of being primarily a meet-n-greet social and a bash Doug (www.averyfineline.com) session. Those of us in the blogosphere can write about what ever we choose. Since we incur the costs of keeping our blogs online instead of being paid to write for them, it really is open season on any topic we want to fire at…..so, heads up.
