It’s now been more than a week and a half since we’ve returned home from Cayamo 2010, and we’re already itching to get back out there for Cayamo 2011.

How about you?  We thought today would be a great day to highlight some of the articles and blogs that have popped up around the net since our return, and then ask you to contribute your own stories or share links to your own blogs.  Sharing is caring, people!

From Paste Magazine: 7 Cayamo Artists Share Their Favorite Moments

From No Depression Magazine – “In all, to say I’d recommend springing for Cayamo next time it rolls around, would be an understatement.”  Here is their day-by-day recap:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Cayamo Wrap-up

From Blurt Magazine: “While I’ve endeavored to describe Cayamo as best I can and in as much detail as possible for one who’s weird and wacky, in reality the only way to truly appreciate all it has to offer is to experience it for yourself.”  Here is their day-by-day recap:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5

Have a story or two of your own from Cayamo 2010?  Add it to the comments or post a link to your own blog where you discuss your experiences.  We’d love to hear from you!

-Steve

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Sometimes people ask me for advice about different things like buying a bar, opening a restaurant, joining a band, founding a record label, becoming an artist manager or starting a clothing company.  I haven’t done all those things but for some reason my response is always the same.

“Have you been able to spend time with anyone who is successful and happy doing what you are setting out to do?”

I remember opening a bar in 1995 with so much confidence and just one year later wishing I had talked to someone who ran a bar before investing my time and money into the venture.

In 1996, I was deciding if managing Sister Hazel was going to be the right move for me and I had the foresight to engage three other managers with successful bands. I asked them for a day to shadow them so I could experience what my days would be like.  It not only gave me perspective, it allowed me to visualize the goal.

Since then, it has been second nature for me to get as close as possible to someone near the finish line to determine if that is a race I want to run.

If you do one thing before embarking on a new path, spend time with someone who is on their way or already crossed the finish line.  And once you get them to go to lunch with you, ask them “What would you do differently if you could start from the beginning?”. For some reason, when you phrase it like that, people admit making mistakes.  I am willing to bet you that the cost of the lunch will be the best money you can spend.

Good luck,

Andy

Quote of the week: “Your irresponsibility becomes someone else’s responsibility.”

Check out this great recap video from Cayamo 2010:

Video: Cayamo 2010 Recap

We had an absolutely incredible time on Cayamo 2010 and we hope you did too. See you in 2011!

-Steve

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A few months ago we at Sixthman faced a couple of dilemmas:

• We love to thank our guests and the businesses we work with… we do little things here and there but we wanted to do something big. What could we do?
• Steve said it best so I have to give him credit: “We work for the coolest company in the world.” I hate to brag, but it’s true! So how do we show landlubbers what a great shindig we can put together without bringing everyone on a cruise?

Then we found one answer to both questions: let’s throw a party on solid ground, right here in our hometown!

On Friday, March 12 we are hosting an Open House at Sixthman Headquarters at 7 PM until we all get sleepy. Our address is 1040 Boulevard SE, Atlanta, GA 30312. If you are in the area, please join us. I don’t want to give everything away, but there will be music (of course!), food, a giveaway, and I can promise we’ll show you a good time. Sixthman loves to host, and we want you to be our guests.

Bring your friends and family on down – see where the magic happens and meet the Sixthman team. It is by no means required, but if you know you want to come please RSVP (rsvp@sixthman.net) so we can make sure we don’t run out of munchies and elixirs.

We are decorating the office as I type this, and we cannot wait for next Friday. SEE YOU THERE! I mean… HERE!

-Becki

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I don’t remember the exact date the Sixthman Blog was born, but it was right around today two years ago. Since starting this whole blog thing way back in early 2008, Sixthman has:

• Published 643 posts.
• Had 2,118 comments approved.
• Launched over half a dozen new events.
• Grown as a company in size by 50%.
• Had 11,011 downloads of the Sixthman Podcast (currently in the offseason).
  
• Launched Sixthman.TV.

Phew!  Well, as most of you know, Sixthman has never been a company to play it safe or take it easy.  I like to think that we’re the best at what we do because we’re constantly trying to innovate, reevaluate, and attempt new things and methods to take our cruises, our service, and our community to the next level.

After sitting down with Andy this past week, we decided it’s time for the blog to grow up a little.  Initially it started as a place for you all to get to know the team members at Sixthman, to see the people who make the company tick…and then Sixthman.TV came along and pretty much took “character development” to a whole new level.

We then looked to the blog as a way to keep people updated on our events and cruises and such, except that we started using our Facebook Fan pages and Twitter pages for those quick news flashes, question & answers, and instant polls.

So we’ve made the decision to make a change on the Sixthman Blog format. Rather than five posts per week (which is tough to keep up with when you have a full time job!), we want to produce two KICK-ASS posts per week along with a Sixthman.TV video every Friday.  Rather than scrambling to put together a post because we know we need to, we want to produce articles and content that is worth of the Sixthman name.

We pride ourselves on producing an experience that you can’t get anywhere else – that’s the approach we plan on taking with the Sixthman Blog.

Starting tomorrow, our new schedule will be as follows: a new article every Monday and Wednesday and then a new Sixthman.TV film every Friday.

It’s definitely a big change from our old ways, but it’s a change I’m incredibly excited about and can’t wait to try.  Bear with us over the next few months as we get our wheels turning, but make sure you stick around because I’m confident you’ll like what you see.

Live loud.

-Steve

If you’re interested in staying up to date with the Sixthman Blog, sign up to receive updates via Email or RSS Feed. All the cool kids are doing it.

photo: qwrrty

We have been working on a cross-training approach where we all manage different responsibilities allowing us to take any 15 people from the office on board to execute a cruise.  That makes it possible for us to keep a 12 person team in the office to service our guests while the rest of the team is out at sea.

In a culture built on an “All for One & One for All” attitude where we all used to load up and head to Tampa, Miami, Los Angeles, Galveston or Ft. Lauderdale and hang a “Gone Fishing” sign on the office doors, this was a tough proposition for some of us.  However, we all knew it was just a matter of time before we would have to “Divide & Conquer”.

So at the beginning of this season, we sat around and discussed who would stay home and who would go on each cruise.  Just one problem….everyone wanted to be there to see it all come together and witness the fruits of the company’s labor.  I let them know that we would all be sitting out on a few but I never thought about myself actually having to do it.

We decided Cayamo would be my practice run and that I would attend but have very few responsibilities.  For anyone who has been on our cruises, you could imagine how difficult that would be for me.  But I had to try so I invited my family and some friends to join me last week on Cayamo and I turned in my 2 way radio that I normally have glued to my hip and traded it for my swim trunks.

It was amazing.  I swam in every pool, ate dinner in the restaurants each night, took a couple shore excursions and saw a ton of music.  The Sixthman team did an amazing job of leading and executing Cayamo and I felt like they had given me the best gift they could give me.  Being able to enjoy one of our events like a guest and have a vacation with my family has made me so grateful and appreciative of the character and caliber of the people on our team.

So thank you Sixthman and know that I am very proud of you all for having the courage to play different roles as we move into the future even when it means leading us back in Atlanta.

Sure, I feel a little vulnerable and expendable like we all do at times but mostly I feel liberated and excited about the potential we know have to grow into the future while improving our ability to execute.

I realize that being able to be there was a gift and that there will come a time very soon where I stay at the office to support you all while you take our guests out to sea and I am ready.

Andy

This is it folks. The last blog on the last day of Cayamo. I think they chose me to do this blog because Cayamo goes beyond being my favorite event. All my idols, friends I have done shows with…all of them in one place, at one time…it’s the most inspiring 5 days I could hope to spend anywhere. I honestly hope this cruise becomes a staple. An event that becomes a household name, so one day when I am packing my little girl’s bag to bring her on her first Cayamo, I can tell her to expect nothing less than magic.

Maybe I’ll tell her about Lyle Lovett and Shawn Colvin (our stowaway) singing “North Dakota” and how the whole theatre sat there still and mesmerized. Not a cough, not a whisper, not a camera click came from that audience until the minute that the lights faded perfectly to black and gave us all permission to breathe again.

Of course I could also tell her about how John Hiatt rocked people’s faces off so hard that he got a standing ovation right in the middle of his show after laying his soul right out there on the floor during “Cry Love.” Or how I watched a woman with tears streaming down her face during the encore of “Have A Little Faith.”

Or I could tell her about how many people thanked me repeatedly (some almost in tears) for giving them the only tickets I had left in the theatre – seats so bad I that I felt bad and tried to convince them to leave instead – just because it gave them a chance to hear Brandi Carlile sing “The Story” and “Folsom Prison Blues” just one more time before they went home. Some of them even hugged me on their way out.

But mostly I think I will tell her about how I worked with a group of people who endured 17 hour work days, very little sleep and more khaki than anyone should ever have to wear to create an experience that people will not only talk about when they get home. They’ll tell the stories from it for years to come and take back friends that hopefully they will keep for a lifetime.

Cayamo….I just love it.

Jill Mac

• The guests and musicians are equally as happy to be in the same place.

• You get to sing 3-part harmony with Brandi Carlile and the twins.
• Edwin McCain sings in the casino until 3:00am.
• Collaborations between amazing artists happen almost every set.
• Singer songwriters get together months before the cruise just to write songs that will be heard for the first time on board Cayamo.
• You can win an open mic contest and seal a slot to play on stage.
• There is a chance to get on stage with Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers to sing Petty, Stones, and The Band songs with their band.
• Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Emmylou Harris, and Shawn Colvin can all share the same stage and join in on song.
• You can say hey to your favorite artist in the buffet line while grabbing a slice.
• Relaxing by the pool also means you must be listening to Shawn Mullins jam out on the deck.
• Where Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, and Brandi Carlile share some of their life stories during a Q&A session.
• The only thing you have to worry about is which show you want to see and will there be enough time to catch ALL your favorite ones?
• You can become friends with someone from across the world that you just met and then expect to see them again next year at the family reunion we call Cayamo.

The journey is coming to an end, but there is still so much music left.  What will the artist have is store for us tonight ?

-Mike

Working for a company that highly values music is, for lack of a better description, pretty awesome.  I have been lucky enough to hold jobs over the past four years that have had a primary focus of music.  The difference between Sixthman and my previous employment is the amount of which I get to enjoy the music.  I was previously a music and media editor for a publication.  Sounds cool, is pretty cool, but the endless number of CDs that you are forced to listen to (some good, but mostly awful) is insanity.  It had gotten to the point where I rarely listened to music outside of work.  It was talk radio all the time.

It was almost like Pandora’s box.  I had come into this really cool job.  A gift from the gods.  A box, that once opened, unleashed terrible things on my brain.  Too many awful songs, and almost a resentment towards music, itself.

Some of you may not know the whole myth about Pandora’s box, though.  After all the toils were set loose on the earth, at the bottom of the box, there was hope.  And hope, my friends, it just what Pandora Radio has brought to my daily life.  Whether I’m sitting in my little quiet room, rocking out with computer speakers, or in the “Calloseum” rocking out on my headphones, Pandora has given me new hope for music.  And a new appreciation for classic rock.  And sometimes I don’t even notice when a little Skynyrd gets mixed in there.

So, in summary, music is an amazing part of life.  A job focused on music is pretty awesome.  Getting through all the crap and finding hope for a better music tomorrow, priceless.

-Lisa

Each night on board, Sixthman has a 20-30 min meeting to collect us from a day full of events and shows and to connect on what our goals and “moments of truth” for the following day will be. We take turns sharing stories and things that happened to us through out the day that stood out or made an impact on us; the good, the funny, the make you want to cry moments. I just finished ushering the main lounge show, which was Brandi Carlile’s second set and found my moment.

On Cayamo, our headliners rotate, playing a different time slot to a different audience each night, allowing every guest to see each artist. I was standing in the center of the room about three quarters of the way up. Not to say there is a bad seat in this room, but I wasn’t standing in the front row. Over the course of a few minutes I caught pieces of the conversation two women sitting next to me were having. I could hear the words – Brandi, awesome, ohmygosh I can’t wait, Brandi, incredible – and while not eavesdropping it was pretty clear they were about to see the show they’ve been waiting for. I smiled and continued to help some other guests to their seats. About 5 minutes to show time, I saw a couple approach the two women and at first the thought of double seating came to mind, then I thought they were buddies and THEN I saw the two women get up and walk themselves down to dead center of about the fourth or fifth row with these ginourmous grins on their faces. Curious, I asked the couple who were now up in my section if anything was out of order or if I could help. With out an ounce of bragging they simply told me that in line for the show, they too had heard the women talking about how much they loved Brandi and when they saw that their seats were “better positioned” then the Brandi fans they asked if they’d like to switch. “No biggie” they said – “we were just returning the favor”. Apparently a new Cayamo friend had given them second row tickets to their favorite, Lyle Lovett, the night before.

I’m not sure I have to go into much more detail about how that made an impact on my day and why it was my moment. The community and kindness on this ship is out of control and if the world lived like we do on Cayamo, it would just be a better place.