a place for zinesters - writers and readers

Chicago Zinefest?

Yo Neil, yo quimbys people, yo chicago! We gonna do a zinefest? there were rumors floating about.... I'd like to help make that happen, though I don't want to be the main bunny in charge or anything.... but i'll help! any thoughts?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by ramsey everydaypants on December 17, 2009 at 10:36am

hey! three of my friends and i (including neil) have been having weekly planning meetings to get this going. we're shooting for mid-march and already have a venue in the works at columbia, though that part isn't confirmed yet. once we have the venue and date confirmed, we have a website that will go up and already have a poster in the works! then we'll need everyones help to spread the word, plan programming, etc.

Permalink Reply by Olivia Arrow on December 18, 2009 at 7:53am

I got a message from Ramsey on etsy saying it might be in February. Do you know Ramsey who does List? I am really happy there will be a fest so now I can start to get some zines together for that.
Hope to hear more soon,
XOXOlivia

Permalink Reply by leslie perrine on December 18, 2009 at 10:19am

so far it has just been neil, ramsey, matt and i planning the zine fest, but if anyone has any ideas or thoughts we really want to hear them. also, i think once we have some of the basics down about venues and things we might have a few open meetings with people who want to be involved who would have more ideas and could help us with planning some of the fun stuff and how the fest will run. i can't wait!!!

Permalink Reply by Billy Da Bunny on December 18, 2009 at 9:45pm

excellent! it's in the works! keep us all posted!

Permalink Reply by Mony Nunez on December 19, 2009 at 8:25pm

there shud be a sweet as acoustic folk mini-ish set with the cool zinefest as well.XD

Permalink Reply by Rey Rey on December 21, 2009 at 8:03pm

let me know when the open meetings are! i'm not so good at planning things but you can at least put me down for a table or somethin :)

Permalink Reply by Rey Rey on December 21, 2009 at 8:05pm

let me know when the open meetings are. at the very least you can put me down for tabling :)

Permalink Reply by We'll Never Have Paris on December 22, 2009 at 3:39pm

If you do it I will come from NYC I would love to read and table, and I imagine I can fill a car with other east coasters. do post asap when you have a date set.

Permalink Reply by Bradley Adita on December 23, 2009 at 4:25am

I think its important to know your history. It could be argued that Zinefests actually started in Chicago. Do some research at DePaul University's John T. Richardson Library in their Special Collections Archive. The original Underground Press Conference happened on the DePaul campus in August of 1994. This conference eventually migrated to Ohio and later became the Allied Media Conference. There was a time in the late 90's/early 00's that AMC was bigger than PDX. However AMC eventually was overtaken by Portland. AMC is now based out of Detroit.

There have been attempts to do zinefests in Chicago during the last decade (00's). Not one of the them really was able to approach anything on the scale of PDX or AMC. If you are serious about this idea you should do more research and figure things out. Work with Lichen Lending Library, CUL, & be aware of the resources available at DePaul (im sure the Lumpen cats would be down as well). Develop a history of underground publishing in Chicago. Reach out to people and organizations from the history. But also be aware of the present scene. And keep another eye on the future.

And here's another thing. Zinefests and zine conferences are getting very mediocre. Try not to make yet another mediocre zine fest. I'm assuming that you've already been to many zinefests and are familiar with some of the problems that persist across the board. The biggest problem in my view is that the fests almost always wind up being a bunch of zine kids sitting behind 8 foot tables with at best a few people from the public milling around. This might have been exciting in the 90s but as we move into the 10's this is old hat. The fest must communicate with the general public and attract at a minium double the amount of zine people involved (triple would be what you should actually shoot for). The focus of the fest should be more along the lines of the Renegade Craft Fairs (however I can come up with a litany of problems with Renegade & Renegade knock-offs as well).

Reference:
http://www.lib.depaul.edu/Collections/resourceList.aspx?t=202
http://www.alliedmediaconference.org/

Permalink Reply by Bradley Adita on December 23, 2009 at 2:32pm

Oh yeah - I forgot about two other huge and important resources...
(1) The Printers Ball (which would be your/our main competition - and a good reason not to do something (this year) at Columbia... since the PB09 was there)
(2) The Alternative Press Center - which is located in the same building/floor as In These Times near on Milwauke just south of the Congress Theater and north of Armitage. This with CUL and DePaul means there are at least three core and relatively stable "zine libraries" in the Chicago area.

http://www.printersball.org/
http://www.altpress.org/mod/pages/display/4/index.php?menu=about

Permalink Reply by ramsey everydaypants on December 26, 2009 at 10:45am

Hi. Thanks for your input. This is the type of stuff we're looking for as we get a little further along (really the only things we wanted to secure before opening up meetings more is a venue and date, since those are beureaucratic processes that can get really garbled with too many hands in the pot.)

We've actually already been in touch with most of the places you mentioned in your post and we've already looked into various zine fests that have happened in Chicago's past. We have been to zinefests in other cities. It's definitely great to strive for big things. Although our meetings have been small so far, we've talked to tons of people from different organizations, other zine fests, previous Chicago zine fest organizers, etc and have pulled great advice from all of them.

Of course we're going to try not to make a mediocre zine fest. We're trying to make a great event! How successful it will be is dependent on all sorts of things. We hope this will be a reoccuring annual fest that will only get better with time. We're definitely going to open up meetings for programming ideas and also will be looking for promotion help as it gets down the line.

We know that we're all new in the Chicago Zine scene but we didn't want that to stop us from trying to do this. Though we do know that we don't want to speak for the entire scene and want to get all sorts of people involved. We've met a lot of great and knowledgeable zine people in the process. It's a weird thing being part of a younger generation of people doing something because we don't want to step on toes but we don't want to not make it our own (as well as yours) at the same time.

Bradley Adita said:

Oh yeah - I forgot about two other huge and important resources...
(1) The Printers Ball (which would be your/our main competition - and a good reason not to do something (this year) at Columbia... since the PB09 was there)
(2) The Alternative Press Center - which is located in the same building/floor as In These Times near on Milwauke just south of the Congress Theater and north of Armitage. This with CUL and DePaul means there are at least three core and relatively stable "zine libraries" in the Chicago area.

http://www.printersball.org/
http://www.altpress.org/mod/pages/display/4/index.php?menu=about

Permalink Reply by Mony Nunez on December 27, 2009 at 8:07pm

i'd like to see this happen before going away to do stuff or whatever. first thing first, people (us, zinester or whatever)shud do something to spread some kinda word around!!=D make fliers. do a small zine dedicated to fiding supporters/helpers to put in whatever they can and make this happen. we pass them out. the local coffee shop wicker park the northside southside fuck downtown. or if you go to shows. then you can 'wait' around and see what happens from there. not everyone who enjoys reading zines have an account on here or something like that.idk. just contributing to this topic.=d