12pm · 2nd Floor / WHITEBOX
The Lab
Installations and speculative objects on the patio, self-serve and always on. The ideal: someone wanders up on a bathroom break and gets stopped by something.
Office of Applied Strategy × Artifice NYC
Performance Review
Run of Show: Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Production window Jun 30 to Sep 5, 2026
A daytime event staged in the language of a corporate performance review. Two registers run the same building on Artifice's WHITEBOX / BLACKBOX format. WHITEBOX, the second-floor patio, holds the installations and speculative objects in daylight — self-serve, always on, no panels. BLACKBOX, the ground-floor dance floor, holds music and performance. You descend from one to the other, flowing in and out across the day. Noon to six, no fixed set times. Co-presented by Artifice NYC and the Office of Applied Strategy, with Untitled.
01 · The Day
NOON TO 6PM
A daytime run inside a five-story building. The patio upstairs feeds a live visual system on the dance floor below, and the whole thing descends into the ground floor as the afternoon runs down.
Afternoon · Descent
Feedback loop
The prompts drop from lab to floor, where a live visual system turns them into the room's imagery.
Mid-afternoon · Ground / BLACKBOX
The Stage
Installation and performance on the dance floor. Three sets, one headliner and two supports. Dancing as embodied strategy.
6pm · Cutoff
On the record
Hard stop at six. 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, a lab on the 2nd-floor terrace in daylight; BLACKBOX below, the raw 10,000 SF basement as the main dance floor. 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 date is the gate: Untitled has confirmed they'll proceed, but the written date lock is the single biggest dependency and everything waits on it. Announce by July 30 with the first poster; the liquor permit is a 30-day lead, so Charlie files this week.
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). Base case below assumes the venue carries sound and a valid place-of-assembly certificate. OAS's contribution and earned revenue cover the core; 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 gateUntitled confirmed · 4 open before date lock
No venue agreement is required — Untitled has confirmed they'll proceed. What's left before the July 30 date locks is below. The written date is the single biggest dependency: everything downstream waits on it.
- Date lockUntitled's written yes on Aug 30 releases every downstream decision. The single biggest dependency.critical
- Fire alarm feasibilityFog, mist, and laser projection on the ground floor need the alarm addressed. Untitled is investigating.Untitled
- No construction on the dateConfirm the building has no active construction Aug 30. Untitled checking.confirm
- Liquor permit30-day lead for the NYC serve permit. Charlie files this week, or the floor goes California sober.30-day cutoff
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.
Underwriting tiers · acknowledgment only, tax-deductible
| Tier | Underwrites | Ask |
|---|---|---|
| Presenting | The full program; top acknowledgment | $5,000 |
| Lab | WHITEBOX installations; 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.
08 · Case Study
SHARED STAKEHOLDERS
The thesis
The Performance Review is not a party with a nonprofit's name on it. It is one working session of a repeatable model — a shared instrument that lets each stakeholder do the thing they already want to do, in the same building, on the same day, and keep the record.
Read as a case study, the event answers a single question for the people in the room: what does co-presenting this actually return? Four stakeholders, four different reasons to be here, one shared surface. The value is not split — each party takes the whole thing back to a different audience.
Artifice NYC · 501(c)(3)
A saturated node
One day manufactures 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 the forcing function that injects supply into the archive — the open-curatorial claim, demonstrated rather than described.
Office of Applied Strategy
Strategy made legible
Applied strategy staged as embodied experience — dancing as decision-making, the review format turned inside out. OAS gets a public artifact that shows the practice at work, 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 five-story instrument, patio to basement, programmed rather than rented. Untitled gets a flagship record of what the venue can hold, and a template for the next co-presentation.
Never Alone · QNCC · Fuser · makers
Credit that travels
Every artist and partner is credited deep and reshares to their own audience — the reach none of us can buy cold. Generosity is the distribution: the realer the feature, the harder it carries.
What one day proves
- The format scales down cleanly. A daytime, self-serve run at a $19.5K program budget shows the WHITEBOX / BLACKBOX model works without a festival's overhead — repeatable at partner scale, not just 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 six; the INDEX entry does not. Documentation and provenance outlive the day and compound — each event a fresh 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 — the case study exists so 02 starts from a template, not a blank page.