Hey everyone, thanks for taking a few minutes to read this. We've just wrapped up a very busy season (October - September), and here are some of the highlights form the year.
- October 1-10, we kicked off another 10 Day Challenge, writing 10 songs in 10 days and posting them on social media tagging the group for the maximum shareability.
- At the end of "10 Day" we started season 2 of Battlesongs. Battlesongs is a social media effort to write and share songs over the course of a week given a specific prompt. Both the 10 Day and Battlesongs had many new people as well as all the regulars from past years.
- We hosted music two nights a week at the Buckhorn Bar in Laramie where singer-songwriters and their bands from all over the state could come have a good audience with a paying gig.
- Our film "the Great Wyoming Singer-Songwriter Competition" played at a handful of film festivals including the prestigious Wyo Film Festival in Sheridan.
- We collaborated with the Wyoming Arts Council to develop a State Song initiative to write "unofficial" state songs in a new category at the Singer-Songwriter Competition. The idea is to use this as our way to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States, and therefore it's called the "250th Commemorative Song." We had about 30 entires, many of which were surprisingly powerful and entertaining!
- Our founder Jon G started Battle Song Records in Laramie, a record store specializing in local music with a permanent "merch table" for Wyoming artists.
- Year 8 of the Wyoming Singer Songwriter Competition had the most entries to date, with regional qualifying rounds through the summer in Saratoga, Cheyenne, Casper, Rock Springs, Lander, Sheridan, Cody, and Laramie.
- We sponsored and hosted the Wyoming Singer-Songwriter Stage at Whatfest for the third year
- We hosted 5 nights of music on the Wyoming Singer-Songwriter Stage at the State Fair in Douglas.
- Our annual Festival and Grand Finale of the Wyoming Singer-Songwriter Competition at the Ten Sleep Brewing Company over Labor Day Weekend had it's largest attendance to date.
- We created a new urban music festival in Laramie called the Snow Train Music Festival. Hosting as many artists in as many venues as possible, we developed a blueprint for other Wyoming towns where the music and the local businesses are supporting each other. The Snow Train was a success with all venues packed some of the time, or some venues packed all of the times. The artists, mostly from Wyoming, had nothing but positive things to say about the event. We used this festival to award prize slots for top placers in the Wyoming singer-songwriter competition, adding value to what we're already doing.
At the end of this intense and busy year, we barely made ends meet due to a combination of reduced income and increased expenses. The reduced income due to a tough year for grant funding and the added to the challenges of finding sponsors for new initiatives (like the Snow Train Music Festival). As far as increased expenses, after 8 years it was time to get more professional with things like marketing, graphic design, sound, and event insurance. We've been very frugal and efficient in these areas, and we think the word is out and that by next year we'll better much better off. Please help us get there by donating anything you can!
I want to quickly pause and say how grateful we are to our major sponsors: Wyoming Whiskey, Metro Coffee, Ten Sleep Brewing Company, Wyoming Culturual Trust, Wyoming Arts Council, Wyoming Community Foundation, and a huge "thank you" to WPR and Wyoming Sounds. I also want to add how grateful we are for the new sponsors we've picked up this year including Hammontree Real Estate, JC Construction, Visit Laramie, Mountain Cement, Mesa Energy, NU2U, Big Hollow Food COOP, iCloud Vape, and all the venues hosting events, people running sound, and all the individuals in the audience.
If you can donate $100 or more, we'll get you a t-shirt with the WSS Logo or the "first ever" Snow Train Music Festival (limited). If you donate $200 or more, we'll get you one of each!
We're a fully volunteer organization without staff or salary employees, so all donations go directly to projects mostly paying the actually artists. Please help any way you can! Please take another minute to read through our Mission and see how we started, and also what we're doing!
https://www.wyomingsinger-songwriters.com/
https://www.snowtrainmusicfest.com/