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as UNC and Duke, among other institutions. W e kick off celebrations, <br />open conv entions, and hav e been a central part of fundraisers for <br />organizations such as Ronald McDonald House’s recent annual gala <br />ev ent. <br />North Carolina’s <br />“stay at home” order <br />(Executive Order <br />117) had a profound <br />impact on the arts <br />sector. Describe the <br />specific steps your <br />organization took to <br />comply with <br />Executive Order 117. <br />In light of the tragic “superspreader” ev ent that happened during a <br />choral rehearsal in W ashington State on 3/10, we came quickly to <br />understand how unsafe singing is during this pandemic and knew we <br />needed to cancel all programs: our two summer programs at UNC; <br />our four remaining spring season of PopUp Chorus ev ents at The <br />ArtsCenter in Carrboro; and two contracted priv ate-hire ev ents. <br />There was absolutely no way we could consider in-person programs <br />and ev ents and know that this is our reality until well into 2021. W e <br />receiv ed an OC Economic Dev elopment Emergency Small Business <br />Grant on May 6. Too late to redesign the youth programs, we chose <br />to start by focusing our energy on piv oting to an online model for <br />PopUp Chorus, with the hope that we could connect v irtually with the <br />singing community we sorely missed. W e hav e created a v irtual <br />PopUp Chorus model and dev eloped a new program called PopUp <br />Dance to offer weekly online dance experiences. W e hope to launch <br />both in Nov ember if we’re funded. <br />The OC grant allowed us to spend four months dev eloping a model <br />that teaches songs in Zoom and gets participants to sing together to <br />a backing track recorded by our musicians. Latency issues make it <br />impossible to record group singing online, so we take film footage <br />from the Zoom session to make a v ideo. W e then send participants <br />to our website where we giv e them instructional v ideos to help them <br />further practice their part and record themselv es singing using their <br />phone. Our audio engineer mixes their v oices together and our <br />filmmaker edits the footage into a finished v ideo. <br />This inv entiv e v irtual model is not a replacement for singing together <br />in person (something that will be needed ev en more post-pandemic) <br />but does allow participants to connect and enjoy a v ersion of PopUp <br />Chorus from the safety of their home. It is a placeholder until we can <br />be back together again. Our goal is to keep the organization going <br />until we can safely resume full activ ity, including our youth programs <br />at UNC. <br />Virtual PopUp Chorus has a higher ov erhead with less opportunity for <br />rev enue. W e hav e dev eloped PopUp Dance as a further way to <br />engage people that lends itself easily to Zoom. W e hope it will also be <br />an alternativ e income stream to help us nav igate these times. <br />Beyond paying contractors to dev elop and test the two v irtual <br />programs, we used OC grant funds to purchase equipment—we hav e <br />four remote studio locations from which we broadcast. W e had to <br />redesign our website to host instructional v ideos and accept <br />uploaded audio files, as well as hire an attorney to create terms and <br />conditions. <br />DocuSign Envelope ID: 7736305B-2D6A-4CB4-A76E-69F4B076DA90