Synergy 2010 Posts Index

(only tangentially related) On Events and Benefit Concerts

2010: Ode to Synergy

My Synergy Photograhy Odyssey

Conversations with Synergy

Synergy ‘10 Snippings

(also, Synergy 2008 stuff)

(only tangentially related) A Week in Taiwan 1: Shuangshi

A Week in Taiwan 2: Synergy

A Week in Taiwan 3: Snippings

Synergy Snippings

Yeah, doing this again just like last time.

* I’ll say it now and I’ll say it over and over again: either come back, or go to Taiwan. I’ll be the first to tag along. I hope you don’t mind.

* Friday. Slow day, yet I could hardly sleep, thoughts fraught with uncontainable anticipation for Synergy tour. As an attempt to suppress my overly excitable state, my sis and I saw the movie “Shall We Dansu?” (the Japanese one, not the remake starring Richard Gere) I liked it very much!

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Conversations with Synergy

* Conversation 1

Antonio: PAGCOR is a Casino where all the money you gambled away will be given to the government, which they use as funding for their projects.

Me: Cool. Gambling in good conscience.

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My Synergy Photography Odyssey

To avoid feeling mediocre like I did the last time I traveled with Synergy, I tried to make myself useful to the group by doing two things. First, by being a useful guide. I wasn’t half bad at it. Though I do not possess the same encyclopedic knowledge as our travel agent Antonio Tan (he’s a pro in the business, after all), I’m well versed with its culture and I speak its language fluently enough to get by.

Second, I took a dSLR camera with me, effectively giving me the same duty as Dane Christensen’s back Taiwan, 2008 (he wasn’t on this trip as he’s serving in Denmark). What it boils down to is that I have to take as much photos as I can of this group. I might not have any gears – not even tripod; hey, cut me some slack, the camera is new – and I don’t have a telephoto lens, but with the camera being a Canon EOS 1000D (or Rebel XD as it’s called in the west) I thought I was well prepared.

The camera wasn’t the problem, and even if I had the gears I don’t think they’d make much of a difference. The one to blame? Me. I wasn’t even a photographer, but more of a wannabe with a dSLR. Despite lacking the experience, I volunteered to take concert pictures. Someone is overestimating his abilities!

Needless to say, it often yielded disastrous results.

(Hit the jump to see the pics)

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2010: Ode to Synergy

The worst part of writing this blog is the realization that it’s gonna take a while for this event to repeat itself.

A Voice to the World

What happened? I hinted at it in my previous post: Synergy, a performance group from Utah, came to perform in the Philippines for 10 days. They went back to Utah last Monday, leaving me feeling crushed and having yet to come to terms with returning to my daily routine. Hence, I write this post as a way to counter the stress the abrupt return to normalcy causes.

Personally, I don’t open up to people that much, and would not have been this emotionally invested with just about any tour groups. To be fair, I haven’t toured with other groups, but my sis has had with many, and she told me several times that she felt more connected to Synergy than most, a few of them having bored her. We are fond of Synergy because despite the enormous talents each member possesses, they behave like anyone you befriended in school or at other social gatherings. They don’t look at you with disdain just because they can do something you can’t. They’re down-to-earth individuals, who happen to have passion for singing and dancing, and rehearse 7 months so that they could go around the world and touch people’s lives with their songs.

Synergy’s song and dance numbers remind me of Hairspray, in that both are so happy and chipper that I can’t help but smile whenever I experience them. Synergy’s performances get me every time, with feelings of optimism inspired by the heartfelt and positive messages of love, friendship and peace. They also please the crowd with their acrobatic stunts that could land them roles in action movies. I’ve toured with them twice (the first time being 2008, which I also wrote about), and I’m still left craving for more. I will never tire of them, and I’ll watch and support them as many times as I want.

So thank you, Synergy. Though brief, our times together brought me nothing but joy.

On Events and Benefit Concerts

People led to believe that event organizing is an easy and worthless job should lose that notion, fast.

Yes, I understand why you write this profession off. You read about them in magazines and newspapers. You say, it’s for the rich and annoying. You say, you don’t need talents to arrange events, only connections. After all, compared to plowing the fields, sweating under intense heat, just how hard is it to band people together in an electronica club? You see feature articles of events with pictures of the indulgent lifestyle of the rich and fabulous, while the rest of the country get poorer. You detest people those self-proclaimed “eventologist” who made statements supporting all the partying from the elite class while calling the mindset that one should feel guilty about it passe.

My post won’t defend those eventologists, which I despise as much as I dislike watching the rich not reaching out to help the poor. On the other hand, what they do and what events they cover do not represent the whole profession. Did you know that you need event organizers for benefit concerts? How about distribution of goods from non-profit organizations? Or, just about anything where you need groups or individuals to get things done in a manner presentable to the public? While the difficulty of their job may vary, only a few would have everything on leisure pacing. Worse, they don’t always pay high.

My sister is an organizer of tour for benefit concerts, and last week I saw her at work for the second time, with the first being in Taiwan back in 2008. Those days I spent with her back then became one of the memories that I most treasure, having met some amazing people. After we parted ways, I wrote that I missed the tour group, Synergy, and wondered if they’d ever visit Philippines.

Call me a psychic, because Synergy fulfilled my “prophecy” by coming to the Philippines last week. Of course, I would give full credit to my sister for making it happen. Her planning of the tour didn’t go easy, though, for she had to do myriad things, which started with asking various contacts to let them perform in certain venues, only to be rejected by many (including the college I’m an alumnus of). She searched for travel agencies to help her with their itineraries, one time having to meet one while braving the merciless Ondoy, only for that endeavor to turn out futilely. When she eventually got everything planned out, with a few universities and a travel agent agreeing to accommodate her, she hardly saw the end of all troubles. What with life being unpredictable, the tour met many hurdles, incompetent airport staffs, uncooperative people, uncoordinated people, and bad venue surprises, like the mystery cafeteria food that tries even the hungriest. To add, she not only had to do this in Philippines, but also in Peru, China, Taiwan, and Japan, in the span of two months. Without the resilience, one would be quitting this job before long. Only the assertive, patient, and strong-willed ones press on.

So leave aside your prejudice for event organizers. They don’t have it easy.

What of the groups going all over the world for their benefit concerts then? They impact their performers significantly, especially when they take place on less-trodden venues. Many performers live every day spoiled by the comfort of their suburban homes, and yet they are discontented, seeking out greater material wealth. They’d think, wouldn’t it be nice if I get this new gas-guzzling SUV? Or that Prada bag? Without taking them to places where they perform in the presence of the homeless and the orphaned, they might never understand how fortunate they are, and might never feel compelled to help out. They look at this and it affects them on an emotional level:

In other packaged tours, all you get to see are the presentable, sanitized, gentrified parts of a country. A travel agent in the Philippines rather takes his/her tourists around the commercial areas like Makati or the beaches with pearly white sands, but not revealing the true state of the poverty existing within our soils. Few dare let foreigners see the people who live in house the size of matchboxes, breadwinners scraping the deepest recesses of sewers to put food on their tables. We don’t realize the impact that these sights bring to our tourists, but those who help make the benefit concerts happen reveal to the performers the harsh realities in many parts of the world, that many lives are lived in dire conditions. They learn to be content, to value the people around them, and, most of all, to reach out.