Print's Not Dead But It Could Be!
Donation protected
A fundraiser. For a fundraiser. What kind of idiot has to do a fundraiser for a fundraiser? How tacky is that? Read on, and you will find out the answer to both of those pressing questions!
Here’s the thing. We’ve got this magazine. Triple Cities Carousel. You’ve seen it. Well, it comes out once a month, and it covers a whole bunch of everything involving Binghamton-area arts and music and entertainment and food and the like.. And pictures. A bunch of those, too. And the whole thing is free. We like to think of it as kind of half magazine, half public service, half gonzo self-indulgence. That’s three halves. Three.
Well, go figure, there’s not much money to be had in just straight up giving people 52 pages of newsprint every month. Okay, like pretty much no money. So, we decided to have a fundraiser. We threw a big huge party in a big huge art gallery. We called it the Triple Cities Scareousel Fantasmagorical Freakshow Ball. It was absolutely amazing. Like, completely stellar. And it made a whole bunch of money, too! Except, at the end of the night, a good chunk of that money was nowhere to be found. Total bummer, right? What kind of person steals from a fundraiser?
And you know what’s an even bigger bummer? We can’t even really do anything about it. Over the course of the night, money from the bar got mixed with money from the door, and because of the pop-up nature of everything, there’s no record that can prove it’s even missing. Super good planning on our part, we know. So we can’t prove anything. And the cops can’t do anything. And well, the term is “screwed,” right? Instant karma’s gonna getchuuu…
The good news is that we were able to pay all of the performers and staff and costs from the night. The bad news is that, when the math is all said and done, we raised about $100 at the Scareousel Ball. Well, at least it’s a profit!
We needed that money. Desperately. The computer that the entire magazine is made on is on its last dying breath. Three loans were scheduled to be paid off the day after the fundraiser. We needed to buy a whole bunch of newspaper racks. We needed to be able to pay the printer.
And so here we are, pandering and panhandling to you, the good hearted public. As it stands right now, we could be looking at the end of Carousel. No more events calendar. No more band interviews. No more artist showcases. No more nothin’. If you’re a reader, you know how infinitely important of a resource we put out. You rely on us to know what to do in your off time. Musicians and artists rely on us to promote them. Our advertisers rely on us to get the word out to you. We’ve all got a stake in it. Carousel dies, and a bit of the local culture we tirelessly work to foster dies too. And that’d suck, a whole lot.
Where exactly does your donation go? Well, the breakdown's like this: $2K to paying back the loans that helped us start in the first place. $2K towards two new editorial laptops, software updates, and computer programs that will improve graphics and layout tenfold, $500 towards those fancy wire newspaper racks all the real people newspapers have, and $500 to pay the gofundme fees that are required in order to raise funds. If we surpass our goal? First things first, we'd work on paying off the other $3k owed to lenders. If we surpass that? Bigger, stronger computer, more newspaper racks, and an office printer that doesn't jam on us after every page. If we surpass that? Well, then we'd probably get some good Christmas presents for our amazing volunteer crew.
So please, consider donating. We do a lot for you, and we ask for very little in return. Help us help you! Save Carousel!
Here’s the thing. We’ve got this magazine. Triple Cities Carousel. You’ve seen it. Well, it comes out once a month, and it covers a whole bunch of everything involving Binghamton-area arts and music and entertainment and food and the like.. And pictures. A bunch of those, too. And the whole thing is free. We like to think of it as kind of half magazine, half public service, half gonzo self-indulgence. That’s three halves. Three.
Well, go figure, there’s not much money to be had in just straight up giving people 52 pages of newsprint every month. Okay, like pretty much no money. So, we decided to have a fundraiser. We threw a big huge party in a big huge art gallery. We called it the Triple Cities Scareousel Fantasmagorical Freakshow Ball. It was absolutely amazing. Like, completely stellar. And it made a whole bunch of money, too! Except, at the end of the night, a good chunk of that money was nowhere to be found. Total bummer, right? What kind of person steals from a fundraiser?
And you know what’s an even bigger bummer? We can’t even really do anything about it. Over the course of the night, money from the bar got mixed with money from the door, and because of the pop-up nature of everything, there’s no record that can prove it’s even missing. Super good planning on our part, we know. So we can’t prove anything. And the cops can’t do anything. And well, the term is “screwed,” right? Instant karma’s gonna getchuuu…
The good news is that we were able to pay all of the performers and staff and costs from the night. The bad news is that, when the math is all said and done, we raised about $100 at the Scareousel Ball. Well, at least it’s a profit!
We needed that money. Desperately. The computer that the entire magazine is made on is on its last dying breath. Three loans were scheduled to be paid off the day after the fundraiser. We needed to buy a whole bunch of newspaper racks. We needed to be able to pay the printer.
And so here we are, pandering and panhandling to you, the good hearted public. As it stands right now, we could be looking at the end of Carousel. No more events calendar. No more band interviews. No more artist showcases. No more nothin’. If you’re a reader, you know how infinitely important of a resource we put out. You rely on us to know what to do in your off time. Musicians and artists rely on us to promote them. Our advertisers rely on us to get the word out to you. We’ve all got a stake in it. Carousel dies, and a bit of the local culture we tirelessly work to foster dies too. And that’d suck, a whole lot.
Where exactly does your donation go? Well, the breakdown's like this: $2K to paying back the loans that helped us start in the first place. $2K towards two new editorial laptops, software updates, and computer programs that will improve graphics and layout tenfold, $500 towards those fancy wire newspaper racks all the real people newspapers have, and $500 to pay the gofundme fees that are required in order to raise funds. If we surpass our goal? First things first, we'd work on paying off the other $3k owed to lenders. If we surpass that? Bigger, stronger computer, more newspaper racks, and an office printer that doesn't jam on us after every page. If we surpass that? Well, then we'd probably get some good Christmas presents for our amazing volunteer crew.
So please, consider donating. We do a lot for you, and we ask for very little in return. Help us help you! Save Carousel!
Organizer
Chris Bodnarczuk
Organizer
Binghamton, NY
