If you're into geek gatherings and ever roadtrip north then there's a good chance you've spent time with Jeff Mach, or at least at one of his events. The man has been the driving force behind some of the most fun events to be had in the mid-Atlantic. He was able to take some time to talk with DC Geeks though.
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| The man, himself. Photo provided by The Man, Himself. |
What do you call what you do for the geek community? Show runner? Event planner? Social lubricant? Ringmaster?
I generally just call myself an event planner. Sometimes I use the term “promoter”, which is even less sexy – I mean, while I know and admire some fantastic people who identify themselves as “promoters”, to me, that term’s always sounded kind of like a huckster. I might go so far as to call myself an “event builder”, but that’s about it. Terms like “Ringmaster” are great, but, to be honest, one of the great occupational hazards of being the driving force behind an event is getting an ego about it – forgetting that it’s about other people, not you! That’s why I prefer to put it in simpler words.
What do you do?
I put on events that make geeky people feel at home.
How did you get into event creation? What was the first event you ran?
I think it’s traditional to say, “Oh, wow, that really takes me back,” so I’ll bow to the inevitable: “Oh, wow, that REALLY takes me back!” First event? It depends – for example, there were a number of Rocky Horror showings with the Rutgers club we started; we also did things like audience-participatory “Airplane!” But if you wanted to know about my first event, it was “The Great Countercultural Convention”. I was… a lot younger, and still trying to put names to all the things I wanted to do and the people I wanted to reach. …and I planned a huge three-day, multi-venue event.
I think all thirty or so of the people who attended thought it was a really fantastic time – I still flash back to that tiny, if awesome, audience in that gigantic gym, the last night of the event…. It, um, was not exactly a success, in terms of organization or attendance. It had a great heart, though.
How did I get into it? The way I got into doing it seriously was sometime in 2000, at a 4th of July party of a bunch of my weird friends, and I thought to myself, “This is a lot of fun. All I’m doing in my corporate day job is marketing neutraceutricals. Could I throw parties like this for my “family” – that is, for the weird people of the world?” And so I envisioned an event that would interest everyone with unusual interests, and called it “The Cult Movie Overnight”. It was a learning experience, I can tell you that much!
What ongoing events do you have going these days?
The weekend of October 6th-7th, 2012, our benefit event for Historic Speedwell, birthplace of the telegraph – www.
Sunday, October 14th, 2012, NYC, New York: The Goblin Market meets The Anachronism – with Voltaire, Unwoman, Vourteque, Psyche Corporation and, of course, The Goblin Market.
November 2-4th, 2012, Piscataway, New Jersey – www.TheGeekyKinkEvent.com!
February 15-17th, 2013, in Somerset, New Jersey – www.WickedFaire.com AND www.TimeTravelersResort.com: The Eighth Wicked Winter Renaissance Faire…now in TWO hotels!
May 17-19th, 2013, Piscataway, New Jersey – “We Interrupt This STEAMPUNK WORLD’S FAIR” – the world’s largest Steampunk event – www.SteampunkWorldsFair.com !
August 2-4, 2013, Parsippany, New Jersey – The Geek Creation Show, the world’s first 100% geek trade show!
Do you work with a creation team or is it a solo effort?
Always a team! I couldn’t do this by myself. I’d die several times over. And no one vision is good enough to try to see all the things that would make geeks happy. Geekdom is too diverse and multifarious.
What keeps you focused on geek and alt.culture events?
Geeks are some of the best people in the world.
Joel Rosenberg once wrote that a civilized person looks after the world, and a barbarian looks after the tribe to which he belongs. I’m a barbarian. Geeks are my tribe, and I wish to help them storm the gates of Rome.
What's the biggest challenge in running geek events?
Surviving!
The biggest challenge is the fact that a geeky audience is really looking, at heart, for something which is fantastic and new and amazing and hasn’t been done before – but which is also recognizable as something that’s part of our shared geek culture, part of the flesh and bone of being a nerd. To do events for geeks the way I want to do them, we need to reinvent ourselves for every event – because geekdom moves forward, expands, explores, grows; it doesn’t stay in one place!
What's the reward?
I get to provide a home for thousands of members of my tribe for a weekend – and I get to do it several times a year! There isn’t a lot in life that could be more fulfilling, unless it would be to wake up one morning to find that you’re actually the illegitimate lovechild of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams.
What happened with WWWW? (Brannen's note: The Wild Wicked Wonderful Woods was an experimental event that Jeff put together for the summer of 2012. It was to be the best parts of a ren faire, the fun parts of some alt.spiritual groups, adults only, and was meant to go without stopping for 72 hours. Sadly, a week or so before the event was to take place, it was called off and all fees refunded.)
My suspicion is that it’s something very simple: It was priced really inexpensively for a weekend-long immersive festival, something that was a continuous 72 hours. But it was expensive compared to the standard pricing for a Renaissance Faire. I think people were comparing it to, say, their local Ren Faire, and saying, “That’s a lot to spend on a Faire” – instead of comparing it to, say, Bonnaroo, and saying, “That’s really cheap for a weekend-long festival!”
Our thanks to Jeff for taking time out from his busy festival life and even busier personal life to talk with us. And if I haven't made it perfectly clear - the man and his team know how to run fun and completely entrancing gatherings for folks like us. I know I'll be at Wicked Faire this year. How about you?
Oh, and if you want to see some more images from Jeff's events I invite you to head over to Jeff Mach's Wicked Events photostream.
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