So, is today a holiday or not?
I’m as American as the next guy, but I’m embarrassed by our collective sense of entitlement sometimes.
New Year’s day (a national holiday) falls on a Sunday this year. “Hey! Wait a minute! That means we get cheated out of a day off!” (says a certain segment of the population). Therefore today, Monday the 2nd of January is the observed holiday. How spoiled are we that we can’t suck it up and accept the calendar for what it gives us?!!!. 2012 is a leap year, are we gonna complain about the extra day too!
This line of reasoning actually leads to a dangerous political conclusion, and the last thing I wanna do is start something, here, so lemme just segue into my original intent for this blog article…and that’s to mark this week’s calendar for some important events for VO’s this year…and a gentle reminder to start planning, now!
MARK IT DOWN
John Florian is hosting one of his always-solid VoiceOverXtra webinars one week from today — January 9th. Of course the reason I’m mentioning this, is ’cause I’m one of the featured hosts. The other is VO talent and Coach Bettye Zoller. The focus is “VO Strategies for 2012“. Bettye will be expounding on Marketing, Ad Agencies and Producers, new Markets for VO’s and much more from her vast wealth of knowledge. I’ll be playing to my strengths in the area of Social Media, Utilizing Aggregators Sites, the Do’s and Don’ts of online networking and some trends in Social Marketing. I also have to anchor the news that day, so the webinar will be held at 4pmEST/ 3pmCST / 1pmPST. Visit A NEW YOU IN THE NEW YEAR to see much more more about this webinar, and to register. I’ve put a lot of thought into this one, and I know Bettye has too, so I hope you can attend.
FAFFCON4
The fourth-ever FaffCon “un”-conference will be held March 23, 24, & 25 in Ventura, California. But an important day on the calendar LATER THIS WEEK is for registration. One of the best things about FaffCon is that it’s limited to 100 attendees (and even that’s pushing’ it)…so to get on board, please mark down Friday, January 6th, 9am PST for your first chance to register. See the details on the Faffcon site.
VOICE2012
The first and foremost conference in voice-over land is VOICE. The last one was in 2010, in Century City. 2012’s will be at the DisneyLand resort. Unlike FaffCon, this is a more traditional conference, with scheduled General and breakout seminars, a busy schedule of events, an exhibitor’s area, the Tech Talk Terrace, a Red Carpet Event, and a big banquet to top it off…but whew!…you can learn so much, and get a chance to really meet the pros. Visit the VOICE2012 website for the all the details.
One quick mention about VOICE2012: founders James Alburger and Penny Abshire are seeking “Ambassadors” for the event. Yes this involves a certain amount of work, but also brings considerable perks and inside access to portions of the conference. You can read more about the Ambassador program here. The deadline was the 31st of December, but my guess is that if you show a genuine interest, James and Penny can find a place for you. At any rate, ake your reservations for VOICE 2012 prior to February 15th, 2012 and save $225! That’s a full 25% off the full price of the convention. The actual event takes place from June 13th – 16th.
APAC
Finally, I mention the Audio Publishers Association Conference (APAC). Cruelly, this event is scheduled for the week before VOICE2012 on the opposite coast, but I’ve personally committed to both. With audiobook publishers, it pays to get in front of them face-to-face, and I’ve missed APAC two years in a row for good reasons, but just can’t ignore it anymore. The event is at the Jacob Javits center in NYC on the 4th and 5th of June. There’s really no website with information yet, but it pays to belong to the Audio Publishers Association if you are serious about narrating audiobooks.
CourVO
