Backstage and IndieGoGo produced a free event on how to finance projects using crowd funding.
Held at the New York Film Academy and led by IndieGoGo co-founder, Adam Chapnick, the event sold out within hours and was standing-room only.

Participants listened to Adam Chapnick outline how and why crowd funding works. Rather than using a fixed priced structure (e.g. you buy a ticket for an event), crowd funding considers the passion of the supporter who can give a variety of sums of money any number of times and help the project come to life through in-kind support as well.

Adam urged participants to imagine just how excited "ordinary people" might be to get a taste of the creative process, to hold a boom-mike, to be a zombie in a horror movie -- these are "perks" that funders of pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for the privilege of experiencing.

In this way, art is moving away from price-per-ticket and is surviving off of a price-point per the participant's love of a project. Crowd funding moves the artist out of the basement, out of being a hermit who practices his or her craft alone and firmly into the community.

In his book, 'HOW', Dov Seidman describes how and why we do the wave all over stadiums nowadays. It's a visceral and visual representation of what every viral campaign should be. If art is about sweeping people up into a place they might not otherwise access, what better way to realize a film, play, musical or dance piece than by involving those who most ardently wish to see it come to fruition?

Come be a part of a community out to learn how to crack the nut we call "the Biz" at Actorfest.