I will also say that this Indiegogo campaign for Welcome to My World has been completely irritating to me since day one. I told everyone up front that I could not do it myself, that I'd just done our successful Kritzerland campaign and could not personally be involved in another so quickly. So, it fell to Sami's mom. I went over the perks and stuff, but basically this was all on her. And when we went live and didn't get past about fifteen percent in the first two days, I told her she was going about it wrong and what to do. She assured me she had tons of people who were going to get us funded and not to worry. After four days and no movement, I really came on strong and said there was no fun or spirit to the campaign and that if she didn't listen to me the campaign would stall and not succeed - she assured me it would all be okay. Plus she met with an Indiegogo guru who told her how to do everything and he'd never not had a campaign succeed, even though he was coming to this one late in the game. When I saw what he was directing her to do, I took exception to it and was again not listened to. It was much too relentless and obnoxious what he was having her do. I finally began mentioning it two weeks ago and tried to make it fun on my end, but the damage had been done, and she continued to make assurances and tell me it would all go up soon. But it never did - yes, we managed to get up to a bit over six thousand dollars and that's fine - but according to her we were going to fully fund without question - we got forty percent of the way there. The promised thousands of dollars from this Disney kid from Girl Meets World show being on a bonus track on the CD and a meet and greet simply never materialized at all - and he was supposedly tweeting to 700 THOUSAND followers. It was very sweet of him to do it and he's a good and loyal pal to Sami and her family.
But in the end not ONE of the promised bigger contributions happened. They know a LOT of wealthy people, not a one of whom could be bothered to contribute, despite the fact that Sami's family had always been there for and supportive of these folks and their kids. Others for whom the mom had done incredible favors also chose not to contribute. Vocal coaches and dance coaches that they've paid thousands to could not be bothered to contribute and by contribute I mean simply buying their tickets via the campaign at a nice discount. Needless to say, this was an eye-opener for the mom and she's been very upset for the past three weeks - she doesn't like doing things like this and who can blame her when people who should be supportive and at least do what they SAY they're going to do show their true colors. She will no longer do anything for those people, and rightfully so. She, like me, has a long memory. There are people in LA that I know VERY well who have not bothered to attend ONE of the sixty-one Kritzerland shows. That just frosts me and I will NEVER go see anything these people are in and believe me they have the chutzpah to ask over and over again. I tell them all the same thing: "How many Kritzerland shows have you seen? After you see one you may talk to me about supporting you."
So, they will put in the shortfall and hopefully get most of it back from the box-office receipts. I have loathed the relentless quality of the campaign, and I actually really put a stop to it a week ago. And other than letting people know about the very first press release that will go out Monday, my dictum from here on in is absolutely NO social media posts or images about the show until September and even then I will be in control of what we do about getting the word out.
One of the reasons I feel the Kritzerland campaign was successful (no we didn't fully fund but we got close to 80%) was making it fun, making people excited, having a lot of folks cheerleading all over the Internet. The mom's friends never did that. We had a few of my people do it and that was helpful. The plan was to have fun tonight in the last few hours of the campaign, but I don't want to now. I just want it to end - I don't think it will go up much beyond where it is if at all. And her "friends" should be ashamed of themselves. For example, the mom has given money to a whole plethora of Jewish families when their kids have their Bar and Bat Mizvahs - over and over and over and over again. Sami and Sarah chose not to have Bat Mitzvahs - this would have been a great way for those families to give back, but nooooo, that didn't happen because the entitlement only works in one direction. Sadly, that is the lesson she's learned.
