This will be a regular feature — a backstage look at the team putting together Mixtape, mostly written by Evelyn Hornbeck, managing editor of Mixtape. Like any start up, we’re learning as we go. Welcome to our journey.
At 8:20 p.m. on Friday, about 10 minutes before the launch party started on Friday, things were going smoothly. We had sold out the Carleton Music Bar in Halifax, released more tickets, and sold out again, something I had never believed possible for our first event. People were arriving, the finished product was even better than I could have hoped, and the team was floating on cloud nine.
That’s when I got the word that David Myles, one of our secret guests for the show, was bringing his own surprise guest, internationally-renowned opera singer Measha Brueggergosman. She was coming. To our show. To sing.
At that moment I started riding a high from which, honestly, I have yet to come down.
How did we get here? To a room full of people reading our (printed, real life) magazine, smiling faces all around, and rave reviews?
The success of the launch Friday was built on months of planning, late nights, frustrating road blocks, questions, answers, luck and friendship (heartwarming, right?). From our publisher, Bill McEwen, spending months consulting with everyone in town and beyond about getting started, to editor-in-chief Jonathan Briggins taking the leap of leading us down this path, from creative director Hilary Creamer’s late nights doing layout from her new home in Calgary, to our resident video guru Nicole Feriancek toiling for hours and coming out with amazing video that blew us all away (watch here, if you haven’t yet). So many creative people got things so right in order for us to get here. And I haven’t even gotten to Jane Caufield’s work helming the blog while we focused on the mag, Samantha Chown’s eager return from France to Mixtapeland, Adria Young’s amazing copy editing skills, Superstar photographer Scott Blackburn’s devotion to our project, our patient and trusting first intern Michael McGrath, the beautiful art from Emma Cochrane and Matthew Bustin, and the eleventh hour heroism of Jen Ochej. All these people, and more, have gotten us here. Somehow. Thank you.
And without encouragement from the Halifax Pop Explosion team (Janesta, Jonny), Music Nova Scotia (Scott Long, you lit the fuse), East Coast Music Association (Rose) we would definitely not have gotten here.
The night before the launch, I went over to Bill’s place to see the finished magazine for the first time. It was late at night, we both needed to rest up for the launch, but obviously, I had to see it. That was a scary moment for me. I had spent hours outside of my “real” job on this, including nights of barely any sleep and even some tears of frustration. There was a lot riding on this moment. It was to make it all worth it.
Bill handed it to me, and I almost cried with excitement.
You guys, we’re here. Somehow, we got here. Thank you for joining the ride.
Photo: Jen Ochej