Morning Edition; Neosho Arts Council

It's morning edition on KRPS. The NeoShow Arts Council has been busy throughout 2020 and is looking ahead to the new year. The nonprofit will hold its annual event in February. Joining me this morning is a member of the board of directors of the NeoShow Arts Council, Sarah Serio. Good morning and thank you for some of your time. Thank you. The council's major event of the year, about six weeks away, ArtCon, previously held in person, but the event will be completely virtual this year. Could you tell us what's in store for ArtCon and people looking forward to the event? Right, so of course we made the decision to go virtual this year. That's simply because we wanted to place the safety of our volunteers, our guests and our community above our fundraising efforts. And so going virtual with the obvious answer. So we have a lot of great things coming up. It's the same event. It's just gonna be a little different this year. And what are some of those differences? I'm gonna say they're gonna be good differences this year. It looks like. Yeah, so we're able to actually incorporate

a couple of new activities. And that includes our trivia nights, which people can join. There is an entry fee, but you can also win up to $200 cash every evening. There's also going to be a Super Smash Brothers Ultimate Tournament for the gamers out there. And that's gonna be ran in conjunction with the esports team at Crowder College. And I do wanna mention that the event is taking place February 11th through the 13th, 2021. And that you can sign up now at neoshowarts.net. I see that you have new guests. They're gonna be virtual also. Who are some of the guests and what can we expect? Right, so one of the cool things is that we are going to still be able to have our wonderful comic creators as well as our special guests, which this year is Noah Everbackt. Katz and Noah is an actor who most recently was seen on Star Trek Discovery.

And we're really excited to have him join us. And that's actually going to be a free Q&A panel that everyone can join virtually on February 13th. We'll also be having our comic creators. And we have a slate of six different artists and writers for some of your favorite comics. Like Superman, Star Wars, Batman, Green Arrow. You name it, we've got it. And they're going to be doing free panels as well. So you can talk to those creators, ask questions, and learn more about the behind the scenes aspects. One of the panels I'm looking forward to actually in the comic book section is our Star Wars panel. We have three of the artist and writers for one of Star Wars comics right now. If I remember correctly, this looks like a larger diversity than our condoms had in previous years. Star Wars, Stranger Things, Green Arrow, Star Trek. Really, you're casting the net wide this year.

You know, we're just lucky that we got a lot of creators who have been involved in a lot of different projects. And these are all people who are really supporting the arts here in our community by taking part in this event. And so, again, being virtual, we were able to get some people who might be a little bit further out of our normal reach right now as an event, as a nonprofit, to be able to bring someone from really far away into our community, just might not have been financially possible in previous years, but definitely doable with Zoom. Yeah, that's one of the better things about it being virtual that the person can be somewhere else halfway around the world even and there they are live with you. Now, you mentioned you have free panels this year. If I remember correctly, last year, you had like a tiered system for different events. Is it a similar paste rupture beyond the free panels that you had last year?

Right, so pretty much everything is actually free this year, which is kind of cool, no entry fee, of course, to take part. There is opportunities, of course. There is an entry fee for some of the more advanced levels of cosplay contests, but kids and teens are still free. There's an entry fee, but there's cash prizes with these as well. So, like I said, the cosplay, the gaming tournament, trivia night, if you want to get an autograph from Noah, it does come with a little bit of a fee, and all the money there goes to help support the Arts Council, of course, as well as the tournament fees, you know, we'll be splitting 50-50, which is kind of cool, so there's cash prizes this year. The rest of it, though, are great panel line up, which we'll be releasing here a few days, totally free to join. So, everyone can attend ArtCon from anywhere. And I do want to mention, unless something's changed,

this is the largest fundraiser of the year for the Neoshara Arts Council. Right, exactly. It is our big fundraiser for the year. But again, we said this year is more important to bring ArtCon to our community, offer up the great content that we always had, support the artist and creators that make comics, TV, and pop culture possible, and just have fun versus trying to focus so much on the fundraising. Of course, we will still have, for example, a great selection of merch that you can purchase and that we will mail to you, and all the money from there will go to helping support our efforts of keeping the Arts in our local schools, and that's things like sending kids on Art Field Trip, when it's possible, bringing musicians into the classroom so that students are exposed to a variety of different artistic styles. So we're still working on our fundraising goals, but at the same time, this seemed like the year

to everyone could just use ArtCon and as in a safe environment as well. Yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see how, when you're from now, where we'll be and if you'll have ArtCon in person, or maybe it'll be a hybrid, where some of it's still on Zoom and online, and then you have a physical component also. So it's gonna be a learning experience, absolutely. It is, in fact, this year, it was like creating a whole new event, but I definitely see the potential to we were able to expand from one day to three days. And so I think a hybrid event might just be in our future. I'll end with this. What are some of the other events or performances or online that the New York Council is planning or taking part in in the next couple of months? Well, over the next couple of months, we're just really kind of taking that wait and see approach. Of course, to safety first right now, but we are still working on our mural restoration projects,

making sure those goals actually happen. We are also really hoping 2020 canceled our Spring Concert series, and we're hoping to see that happen in 2021. So stuff like that. We, of course, have our gallery downtown, which is free and open to the public and is also virtual now as well. Sarah Sarrio is with the Neo Show Arts Council. Thank you for some of your time this morning. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.