I am often asked how I did the OM at Wembley but it is almost impossible
to lay out as there was no plan, well not by me anyway. As you know,
when something is in divine order and one is able to sufficiently
surrender to it, all unfolds as is meant. When it is right, it’s a
success. Nothing to do with me, I just allowed it to unfold in each
moment - stayed with my heart and basically didn’t listen to all the
suggestions that poured in - all well meaning and wonderful people. But
the person with the vision has to hold it strongly. People came for the
OM. The concert side of it was not advertised really. There was just a
reference to me wanting singers at the bottom of the flyer.
This is a very brief run down of what happened. There is so much more.
There were many hundreds of additional factors and decisions to be made,
which went from Day One of planning right through to the end of the
actual day. The follow up after the event wasn’t huge; just letting
people know who rang from all over the world; arranging bits and pieces
of video clips individuals on the day had taken to be put onto one video
- and thanking everyone.
At the creation point of Wembley, I was living in the UK but happened to
be at my mother’s home in Australia. An Aussie friend had put together a
music compilation for me that I was playing – and one of the songs was
the trigger. I rushed out to my mum and said ‘I am going to hire Wembley
and we are going to do an OM for the Earth’. I recall my wonderful,
spiritual, but also practical mum’s reply was ‘Yes, sure you are!
I flew back to the UK and the unfolding began. I had virtually nothing!
No money, no background in anything like this - not even music. I had a
small but dedicated network of people from my giving workshops.
I sat down and devised an A4 sheet laying out the idea including what I
needed to make it work - money, experienced sound people, artists, etc.
and sent it out to my network. I figured if it was meant to be, I would
get the support I needed. And I did. Aside from many people telling me
it was a great idea (although I already knew that) two people came
forward with offers of money. One offered £5,000 and one offered £13,000
- given freely and not as a loan as such but I intended paying that
back. There were a few smaller offers of £100. I figured I had enough
with that to get the flyers printed, a bit toward postage and the
deposit on Wembley - and more importantly I had the sign to start. I
created the A4 flyer, I knew the colours it had to be, violet and gold
on pale pink (clear pink) and the right shade of colours. I knew of a
local printer and we sat and sorted the right colours. I had half a
million flyers printed. The boxes when they were delivered, filled most
of the living room.
I mentioned the idea to a good friend of mine, a Harley street doctor,
who told me his nurse’s husband had been a Wembley Arena board member
for many years. I had actually met the nurse and her husband before, so
he knew I wasn’t a crank!! I rang him and he contacted the board members
and put in a good word for me. I don’t think they would have hired
Wembley to me with out his recommendation. I was of course, a completely
unknown quantity. It was a very ‘off the wall’ event for their
consideration. I needed a special price for the hire and only wanted to
charge £5 a ticket - and I also needed the day before free to set up and
test everything! I got it for £18,000 for the day (was normally £25,000,
I believe) and as the day before was free, I got that too - with the
proviso that someone may book it meanwhile. They were not interested in
selling tickets at that price as they make commission on sales. So, I
had to take on the selling of the tickets. I took a deep breath and
signed the contract
I began sending out the flyers. I arranged through my network for people
who could get to me, to come and collect boxes of flyers to start
handing out, taking to the right sort of shops (spiritual), to their
groups, etc. Where I could I posted boxes by train up north, to the
Continent, etc. Odd bits of money came in, a £50 here and a £100 there.
People really came on board and flyers started flooding the UK. A huge
truck envoy taking charity goods to Europe came and took boxes to hand
out.
Lots of spiritual magazines and organizations (such as Reiki) jumped on
board and freely advertised.
It took a year to plan - I didn’t have the luxury of internet and email
that we have now. Everything was snail mailed out.
On the flyer it said we needed sound equipment, lighting, technicians
and singers. That started to happen. People came in to assist and one
girl in particular was wonderful, really helped a lot with access to
sound equipment and lighting and crews - who all agreed no come and no
fee. They had fun on the day. I supplied T shirts in bright yellow (to
get them away from black!) and they had fun writing slogans on them such
as ‘Show me the way to go OM’. Then I had to get a pantechnicon truck to
carry the equipment across London to Wembley. I got a lead about a guy
who owned a fleet of trucks, rang the guy and he agreed to let me have a
truck if I could get a qualified driver to take it across London and
return it. Free of charge. Fantastic truck - beautiful, huge and
purple!!
I got a stage backdrop arranged.
I went and saw the Brahma Kumaras in Global Co-operation House in London
and asked them to lead the OM. Wonderful people - I had never met them
before or was even aware of them as a group. They arranged for 60 of
them to lead the OM, all dressed in white garb.
I spoke to caterers at Wembley and arranged lots of vegetarian food for
the day.
All the while artists were approaching me to be on at Wembley. People
sent me demos and appeared at my house. I had roughly planned out timing
for the day (with no previous experience) so had an idea of how many
artists I needed and what sort of time I could give them each. I did the
whole thing intuitively and tried my best to let people down easily who
were not right. I kept the whole thing non denominational and that was
important. The song choices were also very important. I vetted EVERY
single song and listened to it. I said no when it was not right. A
couple of singers went away and wrote special songs for it after I
rejected the material they had but knew that they were right to be on
the stage. Those singers said it was tough having their work rejected
but were happy as they went to a new level in their song writing and so
were glad I had pushed them. I was at the MBS festival in London and
heard a lovely German group. Star Sounds Orchestra, who had huge brass
gongs on stage. I asked them if they would gong the OM through the lunch
hour at Wembley after the OM had been chanted. They were delighted to do
so. They were wonderful.
I knew a lovely UK singer called John Christian who I felt also had the
qualities to be MC. He agreed and he was great for the role. He also
sang on the day.
I encouraged everyone enquiring to arrange a coach from their area to
Wembley to make it easier for everyone to come. This was done. On the
day loads of coaches arrived, spilling out thousands of people dressed
in white (another preference) at Wembley.
The phone rang non stop for ticket enquiries and people contacting me
from other countries around the world to see what they needed to do to
join in. Of course people in other countries, especially excited ones,
don’t pay too much attention to the time zone difference. Just as well I
was available. I worked around 20-22 hours a day for a year. It was not
a problem at all. When something is right, as you know, one is supported
by the universe and the energy is there. The ticketing area was
interesting. I would get people ringing up wanting specific seats to be
able to sit near friends who already had tickets.
Also closer to the event, many radio stations interviewing me and I did
one TV prime time appearance. None of the TV stations were interested in
covering it UNTIL suddenly on the day they realised they should. It was
too late then. I couldn’t have leads draped all over the floors at such
short notice (too dangerous for attendees), so they all missed out. They
did interview people outside.
A couple of weeks before the event Wembley rang me and said someone had
booked the previous day so I couldn’t have it until 6am the morning of
the event. Totally impossible. We had huge audio equipment to assemble,
sound checks, lighting to be done, performers to get feel of stage etc.
I begged them for the name of the person booking it. Reluctantly they
gave it to me, saying I had no chance as he was a pretty tough
character. I rang him and the story poured out of the year’s work I had
done and how much I had to have it. From the initial rather impatient
reply to the phone call, he started to really listen. I think he was
surprised that one person had done so much. That’s OK, I was surprised I
had as well. At the end of the call he said to put it all in writing and
send it to him. He had booked it for another group (not for himself) and
he said it was possible to change it. Two days later Wembley rang me and
said much to their amazement I had the day back again. He had changed
the date.
Unfortunately there is no data base as it was pre email days. I do have
a bit of a network but not a massive one. However, I have access to a
lovely USA guy that has 12,000 key light workers on his mailing list and
if he feels something is right he will send it out. He was closely
connected to the Wembley event, contacting me when it went public to say
he was getting that this was the shift needed for the planet. It
confirmed what I knew. It was also interesting the night I came home
after the event. I knew lots of people were waiting to hear how it had
gone but I was hesitating putting a message on the ansaphone. I didn’t
know why. Then this chap rang from the USA and said a key words -
obviously pre planned - and I knew for sure it was a total success and
had all happened exactly as was meant. I put the message on!
Financially, it could have been a bit better. If we had filled the arena
I would have been able to pay back all the monies, as I wanted to do. I
paid back quite a bit of it (everything I had), but both of the major
amounts given to me were a bit short. Luckily the money had been given
freely and was not a problem for the two people concerned who both had a
strong message to support the event. It would have been lovely to pay
them back in full. I paid back some of the smaller amounts to people who
I knew really needed it back. I paid Wembley in full. I took no pay for
myself, of course. The main costs were venue hire, flyer printing and
postage of flyers and tickets.
I was helped immensely by people being willing to hand out the flyers;
willing to arrange coaches; the lovely singers and bands and audio and
lighting technicians who all worked hard all day prior and then again
from 6am on the day of the event - who volunteered their time free.
Wembley giving me a discount, I guess I did most of the rest of it -
with help from above. A lot of work to do, but when following the heart
its fine.
We raised the octave of Earth one quarter percent. It was totally a
success as well as being the most enjoyable and fun day at Wembley
Arena.
Love
Sandy
