[Editor’s Note: For the sponsoring Exchange Club, Mr. Cohn was co-chair of the Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular at West Los Angeles College.]
Regarding attendance at the fireworks show, our original estimate, 12,000, has not changed since Monday.
We don't sell tickets. Per the City requirements, all fees for entry must be a suggested donation only. Some folks give us more than $5, some less, some nothing. All can still get in with or without a donation.
The most accurate figure I have is based on the number of mini American flags we handed out at the gate. We ordered 7,000. All, save 30, were distributed to our guests. Someone kept the 30 for mementos. No idea why.
The only real counting we did was for the cars. We did this to keep track of when the specific parking areas would fill so that we could shift our volunteer crews and collection points. On the question of cars only, I can say definitively that we had about 3,000 because that was the projected capacity at the college (street parking included).
I cannot tell you how many folks arrived by car. Our entry format was to collect donations for each occupant other than the driver. Driver entry to the show was included as part of the parking donation.
We attempted to collect donations from each additional passenger up to a total of four occupants only.
Every passenger after the fourth was free because we were trying to encourage carpooling. According to our folks on the ground at the various collection points, they were frequently unable to collect the suggested donation for the four passengers covered by the gate policy.
As to a head count after everyone was on the field or at the campus, we were hoping that someone from the college was handling that task.
[Maybe there is a sort of algorithm or smart phone app for that.]
From my vantage points, it looked like there was a bunch of people, many spread out with blankets and picnic baskets.
I was too busy running from one end of the campus to the other to make sure everything ran smoothly.
My only respites were my brief stints from the stage where I had to make sure that all of the formal festivities with the important folk went off on schedule with a minimal amount of tiresome bloviation. Good luck with that.
From a business point of view, this wasn't a very good monetization model. Although our general objective is to raise as much as we can for our charities, as a practical matter, this took a backseat to getting the event back on the map for Culver City.
Given that we had to put this shindig together in just a little over four weeks – not a bad result – not bad at all.
Mr. Cohn may be contacted at johnthejungle.biz
