Dayton Region…..Rally?

First of all, I want to say that I support anything that helps Dayton grow.  With that being said, I also believe that I will not sugar coat my opinions because I think too many people refrain from negative comments fearing repercussions from the community.  I see the same thing in the entertainment industry and I hate it.

Tuesday afternoon I decided to attended the Dayton Region Rally…..”rally” may not have been the right choice of words though.  I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be very exciting so I didn’t bring my camera to film for ERRATIC TV.  In retrospect that was a mistake but I’ll get to that later.

Before going to the rally I called a few friends that are actively involved in the community to see if they were going.  Generally, any event they go to is usually productive.  None of us really had any high expectations.  The reason I went was two fold.  First, I felt that I needed to be more actively involved in events that promote Dayton since I have chosen to live here and not move to New York or L.A. to broaden my exposure in the entertainment field.  Second, this was the first event that I felt would really pump up Dayton with some exciting discussion.

I arrived at UD Arena and noticed the parking lot was fairly full. so far so good.

I walked inside and was immediately impressed by the amount of TV cameras and media at the event.  Then, I realized it was only WHIO-TV AND they were a media sponsor.  This threw up a red flag.  If the news was covering this event AND sponsored it, they couldn’t possibly give an unbiased opinion of the event.  This statement comes into play later in this article.

When the event kicked off, I felt like I was at a seminar more than a rally.  I can’t really comment on the speakers because I was still checking out the set up of the event.  I figured if people started cheering, laughing or showing any signs of interest or support I would start listening.  That didn’t happen.

The set up was impressive.

I think there were about 4 camera’s set up in the front, 3 big screens and a remote interview area by the main entrance of the arena.  I’m not really sure why they had that extra set up in the back.  It was almost as if WHIO-TV was pretending this was a huge national event that lots of people would be watching on TV.  Between speakers they would go to the interview area in the back and talk to people and project it on the big screen.  Oh ya…. I counted a little over 13o0 people at the event.

I checked my Twitter and noticed a bunch of people were tweeting about being at the event.  I threw out some comments to see if anyone else at the event had the same thoughts as I did about the event.  You can read my tweets at http://twitter.com/sherifhedayat.  I said things to the effect that the speakers were scripted, there was minimal “rallying” at the beginning of the event and the fact that nothing really grabbed my attention.

In addition to the speakers reading from a script, they photos and videos that were shown on the big screen were very boring.  I found myself going outside periodically to watch the jugglers and the mime because they were interesting and they kept my attention.  I guess my ADHD gets the best of me sometimes.

The speakers talked about how we could bring more business to Dayton and the great things Dayton had to offer like…water.  WOOHOO! Water….really?  That’s how we’re going to position ourselves?

Here’s a suggestion, why don’t we talk about how we can bring more visitors to Dayton so they can support the existing businesses first?  Also, why weren’t there more celebrity speakers?  Kellen Winslow, Sr. was great but we he coaches at Central State….not exactly Dayton.

Speaking of celebrities not from the Dayton area, why was the entertainment brought in from out of town?

The jugglers were great and I even went to high school with one of them but why were they brought in from Columbus?  Michael Israel was AMAZING!  He was definitely the highlight of the show and probably the only reason I was actually happy I went to the event but he was from Las Vegas.

As the event went on people started filing out of the rally between speakers.  I’m not talking about one or two people but groups at a time.  I laughed when Michael Israel was about to come out and paint his first painting.  At this point there were only a couple of hundred people left and some woman that was part of the event tried to block people from leaving telling everyone “You have to see Michael Israel, he’s amazing!”  I’m guessing they spent a lot of money to bring him in since she didn’t want to let anyone leave.

Now to address the point of the media sponsor.  WHIO-TV was interviewing people left and right about how great the event was.  I didn’t see ONE person leaving early get interviewed.  This was when I regretted not bring my video camera.

So now you’re probably saying “Sherif, you’ve made a lot of critical comments about this event.  Do you have any suggestions or solutions?  If you think you could do better why don’t you put on your own event.”  Well, my answer is yes, I have some suggestions and I may very well try and put on another event that is a TRUE rally.

Here are my suggestions:

Talk about things that will excite the general working class.  Most of the things the speakers talked about were already common knowledge to the audience.

Get off the script.  If you really believe in Dayton then speak from the heart.   Make it more personal.

Start the rally with something exciting.  Maybe they should’ve had Michael Israel kick off the event with a painting then do the other painting at the end.

Bring in more celebrity speakers.  Dayton has a long list of celebrities that grew up in Dayton and made a contribution to our city, country and the world.

Last but not least, don’t let the media sponsor the event.  Let them give an unbiased opinion so people can actually see what REALLY happened and maybe they will work hard to create a better event in the future.

Overall, the event was a good starting point but we need to really expand the discussions at these events to cover more topics that will truly excite people.

That’s just my opinion.

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Tags: 17, 2009, al wofford, allen elijah, artist, blind karma, bruce langos, charlie shoemaker, Dayton, dayton development coalition, dayton most metro, dayton region rally, entertainment, get midwest, jim leftwich, joe sciabica, kellen winslow, kelly kirsch, ken neufeld, lisa hunt, michael israel, mike mcdorman, november, Ohio, pat meadows, sean creighton, sherif hedayat, stacia edwards, theresa gasper, tom lasley, tuesday, tv, ud arena, whio