Some thoughts about fan fests and the Mets

A discussion on twitter this morning has developed about fan fests, so I thought I’d write some thoughts at a longer clip than I can do in tweets.

The purpose of this post is to explain some of my personal thoughts, semi-informed information, and not at all to get into any kind of “the Mets are so stupid…” vibe.

The Origins of the Queens Baseball Convention.

I used to do an “awards” post to kill off the winter on Mets Police.  Then one year, @mediagoon and I decided to do actual awards.  We called out a bar (Donovans) and gave like one day’s notice and drew a crowd.

That inspired some conversation about doing our own fanfest, we grabbed Dan Twohig, we enlisted the help of some others (including Greg Prince for his tremendous help with The Gil Hodges Award) and away we go.

The Mets have been nothing but supportive and have been part of all the QBCs.

The Red Sox and the Cubs and the other teams.

Teams like the Red Sox, the Cubs, the Padres and others have official Fan Fests.   Take a look at the size and scope of what the Red Sox do!

So here’s where I get into that semi-informed part I mentioned at the top.  What I don’t know, and probably could research if I had time or inclination, is if the Sox do the fest, or if someone licenses the name, or if its a combination where some Events Company does the work in the name of The Brand (Star Wars Celebration and Reed Pop being an example of such an arrangement).

Dreaming Big and More semi-informed opinions.

I look at that Red Sox fest and think, man what if there were an event where you could meet say Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, David Wright, John Franco, Edgardo Alfonzo and Keith Hernandez.  And there was space to do cool things for children like batting cages and running bases.  Wouldn’t that be neat?

Now I do know first hand that players don’t just come to things because they are bored.  Teams can ask a certain amount of Asks of players, and then (especially in the case of the retired folks) there is the question of Whats In It For Them, and that solution is often cash.

So if Jeff Wilpon named me King Of The Mets Fest, I am not so sure it’s as easy as me calling the Javits Center and telling deGrom and Piazza where to be next January.

Content

Again, semi-informed and not having access to the data.   With all due respect to the great work done by Mark Healey on the State of the Mets panel, imagine a version of that panel where it’s Gelbs of Nelson moderating it, and it’s filmed and aired on SNY.  Is that good content? Sure.  Does it make financial sense for SNY?  I don’t have the info.

Or lower hanging fruit – SNY employee Matt Cerrone with Bobby Valentine.  Run some cameras, throw it on TV.   Could be neat.  People would watch.

So, in a world of Official Fest, that could be interesting.  Can you throw an advertiser in the mix?  I don’t know, it’s not what I do.

While we’re talking content – from a panels/discussion standpoint we could easily fill out more.  There were several proposals that we just didn’t have time for.  The “backup panel” in case someone didn’t make it this year would have been me moderating something I called “Statues” (use your imagination, or maybe we’ll do it next year).  There’s PLENTY to talk about.

Here…and I am typing as I think.  QBC18 – we could talk 1988 Mets, we could talk about what the Mets should do next year for 1969, we could talk 1998 Mets and reach more into Generation Piazza than we have, we could talk 1973’s 45th anniversary, we can recap the season, we can look to 2018, we can argue about retired numbers and statues, we can have Player Panels, State of the Mets, the Hodges Awards, a celebration of Howie Rose, and so on….and that was just with me riffing ideas.

Again…throw some cameras in there and have SNY personalities anchor….could really be a lot of content.   Look, here’s some content now…

What if….would I be mad?

I often get asked if I would be “mad” or if I fear that the Mets started their own fest.  100 percent not mad.

We have understood from the beginning that as awesome as we could ever make QBC, we’re always five minutes away from the Mets whipping out Mets Fest at a scale we can’t compete with.   Heck, we’re also always ten minutes away from T-Shirt Guy Fest which would have an easier time scaling.

But back to the beginning – we just wanted to attend a fest.  I’d be happy to attend Mets Fest or T-Shirt Fest and just hang out.   I could moderate a panel or not.  It’s never been about getting rich off a festival – our goal is to break even.

In conclusion….

Those are some random thoughts that were too long for twitter.  I’m glad people liked the 2017 QBC, I hope they like the 2018 QBC, and if something else develops without us or if someone else wants to talk about working together – I’m sure Goon and Dan and I would be happy about either scenario.

What are your thoughts?  Take the conversation to the Mets Police Facebook page.