AMPED Unplugged

Hi Science World Music Fans!

Wow, we had an amazing fall season! We pulled the plug on AMPED on Sunday, January 5 at 6:15pm. I spent Monday morning unplugging a gadzillion cables and putting all those lovely instruments back in their boxes. The gallery is now empty and being prepared for our next feature exhibition adventure.

When we started putting AMPED together in the spring of 2013, nobody at Science World had ever heard of V-drums. We were also complete novices at looping, didn’t know what the buttons on a sound board did, had never put new strings on an electric guitar and had no idea how many steps go into recording a piece of pop music. And we had certainly never created a karaoke-style video before! By the end of December, we were confidently plugging in guest presenters, mashing up tunes on Indiloop, playing along with Hedley and Hey Ocean! and encouraging our visitors to make and publish their own music.

How did this amazing transformation happen? The credit goes to our wonderful community partners, who not only donated money and loaned equipment, but were also incredibly generous with their time and expertise.

We’re hoping to be able to use our newly developed music technology expertise in the future, facilitating a couple of legacy exhibits, hosting Music Monday on May 5, 2014, and bringing back Teen Band Nights. Stay tuned (hahaha) for the details.

AMPED by the Numbers

• AMPED was open for 86 days.
• 153 individual donors supported our Indiegogo campaign.
• 26 businesses and organizations provided funding, equipment, materials and expertise.
• The gallery was staffed by 71 specialist volunteers (48 students from the Nimbus School of Recording Arts and 23 diverse musicians).
• Chersea impressed our visitors with looping skills in 16 performances.
• The cadet band gave winter break visitors 8 jazzy holiday performances.
• 3 songwriters led 6 songwriting workshops for aspiring pop stars.
• 67 young musicians from the GVYMA performed around the building on Dec 7.
• 5 Teen Band Nights featured 13 different youth bands and 5 Peak Performance Alumni bands.
• The featured Hedley and Hey Ocean! videos were played over 700 times on the big screen in the exhibition gallery.
• We published 995 tracks on SoundCloud.
• We offered 92,727 visitors an opportunity to make music and learn about music technology.
• 2 dinosaurs and 20+ fancy dancers promoted AMPED and grooved to Hey Ocean!'s hit song, "Big Blue Wave" at our first ever flash mob in downtown Vancouver, on September 27.
• We had 1 Hey Ocean! Day—an exclusive concert attended by 100 fans and 12 amazing Indiegogo donors, on Nov 3.
• We broke 0, as in none at all, keyboards, handsonics, loopers, guitars, octopads and V-drums. Truly impressive!!!!! Casualties were 1 DJ station, a few headphones, a few microphone connections—and a lot of E strings.

I have learned so much from all of you—staff, volunteers, partners and visitors, in 3 short months! On behalf of the entire AMPED team, thanks for all your support and enthusiasm.

–Sandy Eix, AMPED Curator

AMPED Community Partners

Once again, a huge thank you to our wonderful community partners, who donated money, loaned equipment and generously contributed their time and expertise.