Column: Signalfest can improve after six years running

Last Thursday night, for the first time in my college career, I ventured to East Franklin Street to climb the stairs of Players and catch the opening night of the Southeastern Electronic Music Festival known simply as Signalfest.

The nightclub wasn’t the booty-grinding den of depravity I had once imagined, but the experience was disorienting nonetheless. I never expected to find two seminal, internationally renowned electronic artists — Atlanta’s Distal and the UK’s Tunnidge — in a Chapel Hill bar that regularly plays host to Top 40.
But in the almost six hours the club was open, fewer than 45 people came through the door.

“It just wasn’t strong,” director Uzoma Nwosu said. “There are a number of factors for that, and fingers are definitely pointed at us for not getting the word out in a more timely fashion.”

It must have been quite the change of pace for the evening’s headliners. The next morning, Distal flew out to play a show to more than 800 in San Francisco, and just a few nights before, Tunnidge packed an underground club in Brooklyn.

The poor turnout wasn’t just Thursday. Over three nights, between the seven shows Signalfest put on in Chapel Hill and Raleigh, Nwosu estimates that only 300 tickets were sold.

In its sixth year running, Signalfest has yet to make a profit. Organizers spent almost $7,000 this year to bring in a mix of 30 local and national artists.

Nwosu said this year’s reception was particularly sobering. On the last night, meeting with other organizers, Nwosu contemplated Signalfest’s worth.

“The festival itself — we were toying with the idea of just completely obliterating it,” he said.

Thankfully for the more patient electronic fans in the area, Nwosu said the idea of ending the festival is now out of the question.
“There’s a quality of artist that we’re bringing and we’re connecting with, it just doesn’t make sense,” Nwosu said. “We will have a Signal 2012.”

But getting to Signalfest 2012 is going to take some work.

Promotion has always been the festival’s primary impediment, and the organizers’ attitude toward advertising is unfortunately incongruous with the niche market Signalfest works within.

Nwosu said advertising was not part of the festival’s focus.

“When you start doing that, you have to start hiring someone to oversee and manage that. You have to get in bed with a PR firm to push that along. And we’re very community-centered.”

Glenn Boothe, owner of Local 506, said that just because opportunities to see artists like Distal and Tunnidge are few and far between doesn’t mean fans will be hungry for the music — or even know where to find it.

“You cannot not do advertising,” Boothe said. “I’m sure their belief is that it’s all word of mouth and that people will talk about it and get the ball rolling. But you need reminders to do that.”

Signalfest’s Local 506 show last Saturday brought in around 30 to 35 people, Boothe said.

When touring acts come through the area, Boothe uses Facebook’s platform to advertise to people in North Carolina who have “liked” relevant band pages.

You choose how much you want to spend and how many people you want to reach.

Advertising is a cheap fix for the festival. But the real hope comes with Nwosu’s plan for honing in on the part of the festival that did work: Signal Sessions.

This year’s partnership with UNC’s music department brought free workshops and tutorials from electronic artists headlining the festival. Artists like Distal opened their tracks in the programs they used to create them and offered students a behind-the-scenes look into both the composition and business of electronic music production.

This could be Signalfest’s selling point, and if Nwosu can implement his plan to bring a monthly on-campus Signal Session come January 2012, it could be the festival’s marketing strategy as well.

Sean Hennessey has his own idea for the future of Signalfest. He’s worked with Signalfest in the past, and set up extra subwoofers for Thursday night’s Players show.

“What I’d really like to see and implement is some sort of student-run organization on UNC’s campus,” he said. “I really feel that if they could do that, they can find college-aged people, like me, within the UNC campus who’d be willing to help and to dedicate themselves to promoting across campus.”

Contact the Diversions Editor
at diversions@dailytarheel.com.