MEOW.
We ain’t sure what were doing. We’re just like you.
We ain’t sure what were doing. We’re just like you.
For over a decade, two local characters Kitty Katt (Jared McKinley) and Magic Kenny Bang Bang (Kenny Stewart) have been throwing an annual event that has been the biggest event each summer in Tucson, under the umbrella of Meow Meow Media, LLC. They are usually assisted by local characters Clifton Taylor and Sweetey Mesquitey (aka Katy Gierlach and president of MEOW), as well as a few local celebrities.
On the surface, the Yacht Rock party is a celebration of the smooth tunes of the 1970s and early 80s. From Steely Dan, Christopher Cross and Captain & Tennnille to Hall & Oates, Billy Ocean and Kenny Loggins. But this event is more than that. The yacht rock party usually occurs during the summer, after all the snowbirds and students have left town. It is a celebration of the season, and the people who live here BECAUSE of summer, rather than despite. It’s a chance for Tucson locals to let their hair down and get campy.
This isn’t the sort of party that people come to to be merely entertained. In this party, the people are just as much a part of the entertainment as the producers: attendees are encouraged to dress up in their finest (or sleaziest) nautical gear, or 1970s garb and live out their fantasies (we find people are less inhibited when they are dressed up).
The event occurs every summer at La Cocina, in the historic presidio district, in downtown Tucson, right next to the Tucson Museum of Art. We provide music (both live and DJed) which makes it a big dance party. We also provide a giant photo booth boat (a boat set in front of a giant mural of a body of water, since we have a shortage of large bodies of water in Tucson). The people who attend range in age from college age to boomers, with the majority being in their latter 20s-early 40s. The diversity of the attendees is high, and a good percentage of them are business owners, and general movers and shakers of Tucson.
This is our 10th party, our diamond year. So we are aiming at making it even more memorable. We’ve had anything from 200-500 attendees at this party, with about a third of the audience are newcomers each year. Of the return attendees, many have been going since the first party we threw 11 years ago (we skipped the second year).
Even after the party, there is an echo as the pictures and video of the event flood social media. For weeks to come people share their stories and pictures. We usually hire a photographer who posts their pictures within a week after the event.
There is much anticipation for each year’s event partly because of the work we’ve done each year to promote it, which includes the yearly yacht-rock promotional video, analog posters and fliers, and the social media images that promote the event leading up to the date. We often work with partners like Tucson Thrift that benefit from the show (Tucson thrift sells costuming), and this helps get the word out. We always do some spots on local radio shows as well.
We’d like to work with a sponsor and feature a cocktail (as we do anyway) that benefits a brand through our marketing campaign, and in exchange, get some help with marketing costs--the printing of posters and flyers, the production of the video, and some social media boosting.
Because we are going for a campy look, video costs are not as expensive as they can be for other projects. We use our own green screen (my livingroom wall), so just about everything is filmed in one place. The biggest cost is some of the magic that my animators add to make it just a tad more fancy and fun, and the makeup artist we will need (in our new video, we will encounter our older selves in the future which we find are still throwing the party annually).
In return we hope to offer any possible sponsor mention in our marketing materials (posters, videos, social media posts), and participation in the event (a featured cocktail, or perhaps more than one, the night of the show).
Video Production $400
Makeup Artist #150
Poster Design $150
Printing Costs $50
Total: $750
A few of our older promotional videos are posted below. In recent years, we’ve been directly uploading videos onto facebook. So, for last year’s video, click here. Mind you, all these videos were done on a dime.
