This past weekend was the debut of the road tour of the Get Your Show Off The Ground Seminar.  First stop . . . Chicago!  And even though it was colder than a popsicle in Sarah Palin’s home state, we turned up the heat on a the projects of the 12 participants.

Before the seminar began, I wondered how different a Chicago seminar would be from a NYC seminar.  What different challenges would Midwesterners face?  How would their obstacles be different?

And you know what I discovered?

The challenges of theatrical entrepreneurs are the same no matter what time zone you live in.

And there are a lot of awesome people with awesome ideas that are on their way up in this business, that live all over this country.

As we always do, here are five takeaways from this past Saturday’s seminar:

• Make sure you can answer the question, “what’s next?” just in case someone asks it.
• Taking baby steps doesn’t mean you’re a baby.
• Looking for investors is like selling Girl Scout cookies.  Start with the people closest to you and then spread out from there.
• To really make an impact, you have to do the opposite of what is expected.
• The key to a show staying open and a show closing is in the operating costs.

Thanks to Chi-town for having me!

The next stop on the tour is LA.  There’s only one spot left in the that seminar (which will be held on the 29th).  Click here to grab it.