12pm · 2nd Floor / WHITEBOX
The workshop
A small group runs OAS's speculative-foresight frameworks and writes short fictions about the near future. Open and self-serve; wander up on a bathroom break and you can sit in.
Office of Applied Strategy × Artifice NYC
Performance Review
Run of Show: Sunday, August 30, 2026 · 12–10pm · Production window Jun 30 to Sep 5, 2026
A daytime techno party staged in the language of a corporate performance review, produced as a research output rather than a commercial venture. Two registers share one building, in Artifice's WHITEBOX / BLACKBOX format. WHITEBOX is the second-floor patio: a workshop where a small group runs Office of Applied Strategy's speculative-foresight methods and writes short fictions about the near future. BLACKBOX is the ground-floor dance floor, where those prompts feed a live visual system and three sets carry the room. You descend from the workshop into the party, in and out all day, noon to ten. The wager, drawn from OAS's Dossier 3: in a post-AI world, imagination is the human intelligence worth cultivating. Co-presented by Artifice NYC and Office of Applied Strategy, with Untitled.
01 · The Day
NOON TO 10PM
A daytime run through one building. Upstairs on the patio, a workshop writes near-future fictions; those prompts drop to the dance floor below, where a live visual system turns them into the room's imagery. The day descends from the workshop into the party as the afternoon runs down.
Afternoon · Descent
Feedback loop
The workshop's prompts feed a live visual system on the floor below, so the room's imagery is written upstairs in real time.
Mid-afternoon · Ground / BLACKBOX
The Stage
Three sets of about three hours, one headliner and two supports, noon to ten. Dancing as embodied strategy.
10pm · Cutoff
On the record
Hard stop at ten, per zoning. One editor in the room, a recap after, one record kept in the INDEX.
02 · Space
GROUND + 2ND FLOOR
The building is the format. WHITEBOX up top, the 2nd-floor patio (about 2,000–2,500 SF) as a daylight workshop; BLACKBOX below, the raw 10,000 SF basement as the main dance floor. Rooftop is a weather-dependent stretch. You descend from one to the other.
1st Floor · BLACKBOX · the Stage
← Projector
Blackbox: the stage
2nd Floor + Terrace · WHITEBOX · the Lab
03 · Phases
FOUR PHASES
Setup, Build, Promote, Produce. The venue and date are the gate: no contract, COI, or insurance is settled with Untitled yet, and Aug 30 anchors everything downstream. Announce by July 31 with the first poster. If we serve alcohol the NYC permit needs 45 days, so the California-sober call has to happen now; Charlie canvasses tonic and adaptogenic brands first.
04 · Calendar
JUN – SEP '26
The same four phases laid on the month grid. Stripes stack where phases overlap; gold marks the gates. Kickoff Jun 30, event Sun Aug 30.
05 · Milestones
KEY DATES
06 · Files
SHARED DRIVES
Performance Review · Google Drive
Shared working folder for all partners. Budget sheet, one-sheet, sponsorship overview.
[untitled] hq · space + floorplans
Space documentation photos, with floorplans in each respective folder.
Studio in Brackets
The venue's own site, with additional photos of the studio.
07 · OpsBudget
PROGRAM P&L
The program budget, carried by Artifice NYC (501c3). OAS contributes $8K, flex to $10K; any sponsorship on top raises production quality rather than lowering OAS's share. Untitled provides its existing equipment for free, and anything beyond that gets sourced. Ticket and bar revenue plus underwriting and tax-deductible donations close the gap. Planning estimates, to reconcile with the live budget sheet and the venue gate.
| Line | Detail | USD |
|---|---|---|
| Program / Talent | $5,750 | |
| Headliner (1) | Name DJ, scene-credible | $3,000 |
| Support DJs (2) | $500 each | $1,000 |
| Lab facilitator | Workshop lead (WHITEBOX) | $750 |
| Artist honoraria | Installation / visual artist | $1,000 |
| Technical / Production | $4,950 | |
| Live visual system | Creative technologist build | $2,500 |
| Projection + screens | Rental; in-house AV covers the rest | $900 |
| Sound reinforcement | Basement / Stage | $600 |
| Lighting | $600 | |
| Power / distro / cabling | $350 | |
| Operations / Safety | $2,250 | |
| Licensed security | ~10 hr, 2 to 3 guards | $1,100 |
| Production crew | Stagehands / PAs | $800 |
| Box office / door | Check-in, capture | $350 |
| Compliance | $1,250 | |
| Event insurance | Incl. liquor coverage | $650 |
| Place of Assembly + permits | NYC public assembly | $450 |
| Alcohol serve permit | If serving | $150 |
| Marketing / Archive | $4,250 | |
| 6-poster series | Designer honoraria | $1,200 |
| Collab merch (production) | Co-branded drop, carries the poster art | $1,500 |
| Documentation | Photo + video, INDEX record | $1,200 |
| Print / signage / wayfinding | $350 | |
| Contingency | ~5% | $1,050 |
| Total expenses | $19,500 | |
| Revenue · committed + earned | $14,000 | |
| OAS program contribution | Baseline, flex to $10K | $8,000 |
| Ticket sales | Net to program, ~300 paid, net of splits | $4,000 |
| Merch sales | Net of production + splits, ~60 units sold | $2,000 |
| Underwriting + donations needed | $5,500 |
Venue proposal gateContract + COI open · date not locked
No contract, COI, or insurance is settled with Untitled yet, and all three are urgent. Charlie is following up with Ava on the agreement, the certificate of insurance, and the Aug 30 date. Everything downstream waits on the date.
- Date lockUntitled's written yes on Aug 30 releases every downstream decision. Not yet confirmed.critical
- Contract + COINo agreement signed. Unclear whether Untitled's insurance covers the event; a COI may need to be obtained independently. Charlie chasing Ava.urgent
- Alcohol vs. California soberServing needs the NYC permit, 45-day lead. Preferred route is California sober with tonic and adaptogenic partners; Charlie canvasses brands first.45-day lead
- Production floorUntitled's existing equipment is free; anything past it gets sourced. Daytime glass may wash out early projection, so budget for coverage.source
Go / no-go, Aug 1. The plan is funded only when OAS's $8K is committed in writing, the date is locked with Untitled, and at least one underwriter is signed. Short of that, scale down (drop alcohol, smaller merch run, Hydra-only visuals) or move the date. A scaled event that breaks even beats a full one that puts the nonprofit in the red.
08 · Underwriting
PROTOCOL + TIERS
Every sponsor dollar runs through Artifice NYC (501c3), which is what makes the gift tax-deductible and keeps the entity wall intact. The rule underneath all of it: a sponsor buys acknowledgment, never advertising, access, or a say in the program. OAS is new to underwriting, so Artifice's development director leads the ask and OAS opens doors. Six steps from a prospect to a credited underwriter.
- Qualify. Arm's length and mission-aligned. The gift can't come with a return benefit, placement demand, or programming input, or it stops being a donation and the wall cracks.
- Route. Cash underwrites a named part of the program (Lab, Stage, Archive); in-kind covers F&B, beverage, or product at fair value. Match the prospect to the tier before the ask.
- Cap. Keep any single restricted gift at or under $25K so one sponsor can't tip Artifice's public-support test. Bigger interest gets split, staged, or restructured with the finance lead.
- Paper. W-9 and determination letter out; signed acknowledgment letter back, stating no goods or services were exchanged. In-kind gifts get a written fair-market value.
- Acknowledge. Name only, at the agreed tier placement. No logo-as-ad-unit, no "sponsored by," no substantial return benefit. Same treatment for every tier, scaled by prominence.
- Book. Log to the sponsorship overview tab and the budget sheet. Every dollar over the base plan raises production quality; it never lowers OAS's $8K contribution.
Underwriting tiers · acknowledgment only, tax-deductible
| Tier | Underwrites | Ask |
|---|---|---|
| Presenting | The full program; top acknowledgment | $5,000 |
| Lab | WHITEBOX workshop; educational core | $2,500 |
| Stage | The live visual system + performance | $2,500 |
| Archive | Documentation + the INDEX record | $1,500 |
| Community | Access tickets, accessibility | $1,000 |
| Friend / In-kind | F&B, beverage, product | $500+ |
Individual donations, tax-deductible: suggested gift levels $500 / $250 / $100 / $50. If a gift includes a ticket, only the amount above the ticket's fair market value is deductible.
Artifice NYC, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN on request). Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Corporate underwriting is acknowledged by name and does not include advertising or a substantial return benefit. Determination letter and W-9 available on request.
09 · Case Study
SHARED STAKEHOLDERS
The thesis
The Performance Review is one closed loop. Upstairs, a workshop uses Office of Applied Strategy's foresight methods to write near-future fictions. Those prompts drop to the dance floor, where a live visual system turns them into the room's imagery and the floor moves to it. Speculation becomes image becomes motion, and it feeds back into the next prompt. The wager, from OAS's Dossier 3: in a post-AI world, imagination is the human intelligence worth cultivating, so the party is built to exercise it.
Read as a case study, the event answers one question for the people in the room: what does co-presenting this actually return? Four stakeholders, four reasons to be here, one shared surface. Nobody splits the value; each party takes the whole thing back to a different audience.
Artifice NYC · 501(c)(3)
A saturated node
One day makes a batch of artifacts, makers, and provenance in a single place. WHITEBOX / BLACKBOX runs live, and one editor keeps one record in the INDEX. The event is what feeds the archive, and it shows the open-curatorial claim at work.
Office of Applied Strategy
Strategy made legible
A think tank that metacritiques corporate culture, staging applied strategy as embodied experience: dancing as decision-making, the review format turned inside out. OAS gets a public artifact from its Dossier 3 track, in front of an audience that reads culture before it reads a deck.
Untitled · the venue
The building as format
The space is the show: a whole building from patio to basement, programmed rather than just rented. Untitled gets a flagship record of what the venue can hold, and a template for the next co-presentation.
Charlie · QNCC · Fuser · makers
Credit that travels
Every artist and partner gets credited deep and reshares to their own audience, which is reach none of us can buy cold. The more real the feature, the harder it carries.
What one day proves
- The format scales down cleanly. A daytime, self-serve run on a $19.5K program budget shows the WHITEBOX / BLACKBOX model works without festival overhead, at partner scale rather than only marquee scale.
- Co-presentation beats sponsorship. Four stakeholders each carrying the whole event to a separate audience is a wider net than any one org buying reach. The wall holds: acknowledgment only, tax-deductible, no return benefit.
- The record is the asset. The party ends at ten; the INDEX entry does not. Documentation and provenance outlive the day and compound, each event another peg on the same identity spine.
- It is designed to run again. Lock the date, keep the model, swap the news detail. This is Performance Review 01, and the case study exists so 02 starts from a template instead of a blank page.