Post #317210 by Humuhumu on Sat, Jul 7, 2007 4:16 PM

I'd suggest starting really, really small -- why not organize a dinner at Hula's in Monterey or Hula's in Santa Cruz? It's the best way to 1) get to know your friendly neighborhood tikiphiles, 2) get a feel for the local tiki vibe and 3) get some feedback from the very people who are most likely to be interested in a larger event.

It will be hard to predict what sort of turnout you might get for a larger-than-just-dinner event. As others have mentioned, an event in Monterey may not have a ton of long-distance draw. After all, traveling all the way to Northern California and not seeing places like Forbidden Island, the Tonga Room, Trader Vic's -- I mean, that'd just be weird. You'd have to come up with a really seriously unique draw to get any sort of serious out-of-town turnout.

To give you a general idea of the kind of turnout we get for events up here in Northern California, the Hooptylau event in the Central Valley that was mentioned generally draws about 30-40 people, the annual four-day Tiki Central San Francisco Tiki Bar Crawl generally draws anywhere from a dozen or so on Thursday or Sunday to a hundred on Saturday, and every now and then there'll be a local one-off event that'll attract a good dozen or two folks.

Forget making money: you're pretty much guaranteed to lose money throwing an event. The events in this crowd are truly a labor of love, and a lot of out-of-pocket expenses are incurred by those throwing them. Really, just think of it as a party you're throwing for your friends. Which comes back around to starting small -- it's a little weird to throw a party for friends you don't know (hence some of the skepticism on this thread), so get to know us! I'm always up for a get-together at Hula's.