Wednesday, May 2, 2012

O_O

As I said, last night I sent an email to Dr. Tyson's people inquiring about what it would take to get him here. 

This morning, I had a reply.

Not from Dr. Tyson-- I didn't expect he would see the message anyway-- but from the person who books his speaking engagements. He gave me his phone number and said I ought to call, he could answer my questions. I freaked out about that for a while-- I hate phones, and when it comes to contacting important people, I much prefer to have the time to compose my thoughts and agonize over my phrasing that email allows. But I did so.

It costs $40,000 to get Dr. Tyson to speak. 

Plus first class travel and expenses, of course. 

And the scary thing? We're actually going to try to make it happen.

Dr. Tyson is booked until next year, what with filming the new Cosmos series. In general, it's best to try to book him very far in advance anyway, I am told, because he gets hundreds of requests a year and can only do so many of them. So the fact that we had said spring at the earliest is actually fairly convenient. In fact, Dr. Tyson has an engagement in California on May 1, so if we wanted to book him the day before or after, it would cut down on travel costs. 

A couple of things make the very large number slightly less scary. Only half of it is due at the time the contract is signed, and even that might not be set in stone-- some schools, I am told, have a policy against paying advances. Mines is one such school, but they make exceptions for cases where it is industry standard to do so, so I'm not sure whether we will have to or not. The rest of the money-- or all of it, possibly-- is due the day after the event.

That's where the other one comes in: ticket sales. Our largest venue on campus seats 1100. I wish we had a larger-- it will be no trouble to sell that out completely. But if I set the ticket price at $20, that will cover more than half. And if I set it at $25... I don't want to set them that high, but I think I could. (Yes, $40 tickets would probably cover everything. I don't want to set the price that high-- I want students to be able to afford to go.)

However, as confident as I am of selling out our auditorium, I know I should not count on that money. Besides, it would be much better to have the ticket sale money to use for the future-- so I'm left with trying to raise $40,000. 

But like I said, the scary thing is that we're going to try. How amazing would that be? Not only being able to meet one of my idols, more personally because I'm an organizer for the event, but also the message it would send. A brand new group, able to raise that kind of money and get one of the most recognized scientists alive to come to our campus-- I wonder how much the Campus Crusade for Christ has ever raised for one thing? And if we can get the full amount before, we'd have $22,000 (or more!) to use for charitable donations and service. How much has the Fellowship of Catholic University Students ever donated in one big chunk? It's a petty, selfish sort of glee to think about being able to top those two-- among others-- in our first year of existence. 

By the way, if you have fundraising suggestions-- preferably ones that bring in a lot of money-- please offer them in the comments... we're going to need all the help we can get!

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