A couple of live events around Orlando

During this month I had the opportunity to attend two different events around the city of Orlando. The first one was a concert by Brazilian guitarist Ricardo Filipo at Timucua Art Foundation on August 10^th.  The second one was the concert “An evening with Bernstein and Sondheim” at the First  United Methodist Church of Orlando on August 24^th.

Although both experiences were concerts, both were very different in format. For the first concert the environment was very intimate and familiar. There is food and wine that the audience brings and people are free to make a donation for the artists and the house itself. Along with the musician, there is also a visual artist that showcases his art every Sunday.  The venue is beautifully built and the acoustics work fairly well. It is also amazing to me that people would open their house for the general public just for the love of art, which makes the experience that much more emotional. 

There are, however, a couple of aspects that could be worked upon to improve the experience of the white house of Timucua. First of all, although I am aware of the desire to make the experience feel familiar and intimate, I would serve the food and wine after the performance was over. This way, people would be much more focused on the performance itself and would not be constantly going out and coming back in, also letting the rest of the public enjoy the performance much more quietly.  The second aspect is the parking. Because a lot of people go to these events, I think they should explore the possibility of opening more parking spaces by, for example, making an alliance with the school that is just across the street of the white house or with another nearby parking lot. A third thing that could be improved upon is having a concert program in which people could read the pieces that are going to be played and the biography of the musician and the artist present for that evening. This doesn’t have to be something elaborate or expensive; it could even be just projected on the television set that is hanging on the back wall of the stage.

The second concert I attended was held at the First United Methodist Church in downtown Orlando. The church is a beautiful building with seating capacity for around 700 people. The program of the concert consisted of the Chichester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein and several songs taken from his operas and musicals, as well as Stephen Sondheim’s musicals. It was a larger-scale concert that included a symphonic orchestra, choir and vocal soloists. The ambience of the concert was very fun because people felt free to clap and cheer for the musicians although they were in a church, and the musical quality of the program was very good.

One aspect that could be improved upon is the marketing of the event; the church has capacity for around 700 people, but almost one third of the benches were empty. However I know that these concerts are organized with the support of volunteers and the budgets are usually not very large; plus, they don’t charge admission. This translates into the inability to invest a large amount of money into the marketing of these events. One thing they could do to attract more people is to have everybody that attended reach out to their friends and family for the next event, as to create a buzz around the community. They could also use social media to reach more people; as far as I could see, they had only one post about this event on their Facebook page, posted on August 14^th, a long time before the concert actually took place. Activating their social networks may actually also help to reach a younger demographic to attend their concerts.

Another thing to work on for this event; is to consider having the option to sell refreshments like water or soda, or anything to eat once the concert is finished; because a lot of the people that go are older, having water around should be a good idea. Besides these two aspects, I thought the event was almost perfect; they have ushers, programs, good parking and security.

As a whole, both concerts provided me with two very different ways to live and feel music, which is always a fulfilling experience.

Quatro Solutions at 1 Million Cups Orlando

Quatro Solutions (see their business pitch here) is a start-up company that created a tablet and resources for educational purposes.  Their bet is to help schools implement a full digital curriculum for their students in each course, turning paper into digital content. Quatro Solutions manufactures the actual device, built on Android platform, and have several partnerships and resources built into their services to allow schools to efficiently transition from paper to digital.

Although they cannot take a teacher’s content and turn it into digital, they are able to provide teachers with the tools to include their worksheets and texts by simply turning them into a .pdf file. They also provide schools with teacher training for the use of the tablets, and fully compatible information in case the school decides to change tablets for the following years.

With all this great features their tablets also cost a fraction of what their competitor’s devices, at around $300.00 per device. They also charge some extra fees if the school is in need of extra help such as training or insurance for the tablets, to help elongate their lifespan.

Although they provide a great service, one weakness that I find with Quatro Solutions is the fact that they are not very well known, because they are just starting; their first tablets were sold on April 2013. With giants like Apple and Samsung in their same line of business, they are going to have to do an outstanding job with their technology and service, in order to establish themselves in the market. One strength that I find is the fact that they want to sell exclusively to institutions, which spares them to go into the retail sale market, which is a lot different to the model they have been using until now. Also, their tests have proven successful in increasing the understanding of the students while using their tablets.

For the presentation itself, I would say that you should never start by apologizing because your presentation may not be as prepared as you would like, even if you found out on Monday that you had to pitch your business on Wednesday. I would also tell the presenter to slow down and enunciate, to avoid losing his train of thought and using pet phrases too often, or simply getting his words wrong. As for the business, I think hey should focus their differentiating factor on their services and partnerships, and not focusing so much on their price. Price is a very fluctuating item and nothing stops their competitors to possibly come out with great products of the same price and from a better-known brand. That is why I believe that it is those other factors that should be used as they main strengths.