Van Motion #01
So on Wednesday August 28th I hosted my first ever event and it was an amazing feeling!
After attending the Craft Club: Animation event back in May I got chatting to Jay from Giant Ant and Hao from Linetest about how there aren’t enough meetups / networking events in Vancouver for like-minded motion graphic designers and animators and that it was nice to attend something that was so specific to what we do. We do have the fantastic Blend festival that happens here but they are a lot bigger events that only happen every 5 or so years.
I decided to change this. After speaking with my wife about possibly making a meetup I couldn’t get it out of my mind and decided to take a punt and give myself until the end of the summer to make it happen. I kept an eye out for a good space and after seeing the upstairs room at Brewing August I knew we were on to something. I reached out and got the space nailed down for the end of August and that meant it was real. Time to get at it. From there on, I created the brand and identity myself and even got a few friends involved to help elevate what I’d been working up. Rashaad Wiggins from Mass Audio Post Production brought his finesse to the logo design which I could then spread around the rest of my branding.
Right, brand and space booked. Time to figure out the event. I wanted to base it on an event I used to attend in Manchester when I was there called Motion North. I reached out to a close friend Johnny at Mighty Giant and chatted to him about the event and learnings he could pass on from having run Motion North for over 10 years.
I reached out to many talented people online to see if they would like to speak at the first event and I had a great response. Everyone, like myself, were very excited at the prospect of a networking event for Motion Designer & Animators. Scot Keith from One 23 West was the most eager of the bunch! He responded within a couple of hours and said he would love to present. This was amazing news… Scot Keith, who has presented alongside Kanye and Bono at Cannes Lions festival, wanted to talk at our event! Holy moly this was going to be a great night!
The last part of the puzzle was that I wanted to put on an “Artist Showcase”. This was a chance for the attendees to share what they’re working on, proud of or have recently finished with everyone else at the event. I knew the first would be difficult as no-one knew what it was but fortunately for me I know quite a few talented designers that I could prod for work!
The end of August came around and the night was a blast! The showcase was great and the audience loved seeing what work was coming out of our province. Then Scot stepped up and blew everyone away. It was a fascinating talk with stories of how One 23 West got to where they are today and how they tackled the covid situation. We even did a 30 minute Q & A after that before everyone got to mingle and meet other attendees. The event went on until we were kicked out of the brewery and Scot himself said “That’s the sign of a good event”. I’ll take that!
And yes, to all those that have been asking… I am planning on putting on more events. Number 2 will hopefully be coming around November / December time and I can’t wait to get everyone together again!
Watch this space!
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