National Poetry Slam 2013 will be in Boston/Cambridge

[hsampson]

    Poetry Slam, inc, is very pleased to announce that our largest event The National Poetry Slam will be returning to Boston/Cambridge in 2013.   Simone Beaubien submitted a bid to host NPS 2013 that has been accepted by the EC.  She has met with her committee from NPS 2011 and they are committed to working on making NPS 2013 even better than the most excellent NPS 2011 that they did such an outstanding job of running from start to finish.
      Congrats and thanks to Simone and her team!!

[inkera]

Awesome!!

[Duncan Shields]

Great news

[danstrack]

That's wonderful news!  Last year's NPS in Boston was really great, so I'm sure they will do a kickass job this year!

[GrayBrianThomas]

Does anyone else find it frustrating that nats will be in a city east of the Mississippi River for the 7th year in a row? (Madison, West Palm Beach, St.  Paul, Boston, Charlotte, Boston).  Shouldn't there be some regional variety so that west coast teams could get a break from having to raise so much money? Our team alone has to raise nearly $6000 a year to get to these cities.  It feels disenfranchising, shows regional favoritism, and discourages equal growth of slam throughout the nation.  Any thoughts?

[Yah Fu "the Pen Bender"]

Yes I have thoughts,1st of all 7th year in a row is not true, 2005 Allbuquerque, 2006 & 07 Austin, TX & 2010 St. Paul all west of the Mississippi. Thought you might need to know that!

[AmyD]

If you wish to have an NPS on the West Coast, perhaps you should bid on NPS. AFAIK, nobody out West has asked to host NPS since Albuquerque.

[karen_g]

Regional rotation & grounding of NPS in one or a few select cities  (& to a certain extent, IWPS & WOWPS) are both in heavy discussion among members & EC.
Even better routes to make funding  to run events cheaper for poets is part of the discussion.
Some cities are more expensive than others (Boston & the NE in particular, even if you *are* east of the Mississippi). If you have any ideas in these areas, I suggest reading up on the discussions & making suggestions.
If you want to see events visit the SW & W more often, talk to people in the region, get bids together. Reach out & brain storm.
Yahfu is right~~ and if you include IWPS, that was in Berkeley a few years ago & WOWPS was just in Denver. Talk to both those scenes. Bringing events back is on their minds.

[simone]

Folks! It's true: all of us here in Boston have recovered from NPS 2011 (or perhaps it drove us out of our minds...), and when we heard Chicago would be unable to field the bid, we submitted our own. In coming months, I'll be posting to ask you what we can do and do better for you at NPS in 2013. We already understand that crowds and our selection of day events were problematic, so these are high priorities for us. But you may know about something else imperfect that we can work together to make more awesome. I encourage you to start brainstorming!

In terms of regional favoritism: I would LOVE to come to a west-side NPS, and it's definitely the east coast's turn to content with the fundraising and time-change challenges. However, as some folks have mentioned, it's up to those cities to put in a bid. I hear NPS 2014 is open for bid this August, right...?

[hsampson]

I am very excited to be back in Boston for NPS 2013, and very grateful to Simone and her team for picking up the short preparation period when Chicago decided not to host in 2013.
     As for Simone's comment that NPS 2014 is due for bid in August, I'm sorry to say that the SM vote for NPS 2014 should have been in March at WOWPS in Denver.  Bid cycle posted below.  What happens when we did not have any qualified bids in March is that the selection process falls to the EC for securing a host as soon as possible to allow for a 2 year preparation period for the event.
     I am very glad to say that the EC has acted on securing a host for NPS 2014, and I will have an announcement very soon.

Bid Cycle:
otes for NPS occur:
NPS 2012 - SM Meeting March 2010
NPS 2013 - SM Meeting March 2011
NPS 2014 - SM Meeting March 2012
NPS 2015 - SM Meeting March 2013
NPS 2016 - SM Meeting March 2014

Votes for iWPS occur: **
iWPS 2012 - SM Meeting August 2010
iWPS 2013 - SM Meeting August 2011
iWPS 2014 - SM Meeting August 2012
iWPS 2015 – SM Meeting August 2013
iWPS 2016 – SM Meeting August 2014

WOWPS **
tbd by EC, announced at March SM meetings

If you are interested in seeing one of PSI's inspiring events in your town, please take a look at the bid process and forms that are in a thread at the top of this forum, and also, please email me, even if you are still in the germinal phase of thinking maybe you might want to host an event someday.  Each event has an event coordinator, whose job is to help you complete a good bid, and then help you coordinate a most successful event.  Not saying it's easy, just saying we have pretty good processes in place.

The next couple of events where bids are needed are (if memory serve me correctly):
iWPS 2013 and 2014
WOWPS 2014
NPS 2015

[karen_g]

Thank you for posting the bid cycles