Hi there.
If you’re reading this, thank you. Thank you for visiting theYYSCENE and supporting what it is we do.
For those who are maybe coming here for the first time, though, a little background.
We are a Calgary arts, culture and listings website that was launched in January of 2017 by three longtime journalists in the city:
• Mike Bell, who has 25 years of experience covering the city’s music scene, working for both daily newspapers as well as being the founding arts and music editor for Fast Forward Weekly
• Kari Watson, a writer and the listings editor at FFWD for its almost 20-year duration, and the creator of the city’s most comprehensive listings website, The Culture Cycle
• Janet Matiisen, former design editor at the Calgary Herald where she worked for almost 25 years, who has also done graphic design for Impact Magazine and other projects around town.
As the media landscape in the city shifted, we saw the need for a site featuring informed and engaging storytelling about what makes Calgary such a unique and vibrant place to live — from the musicians, theatre and dance companies, filmmakers, writers, brewers and restauranteurs who make this their home to the many and varied festivals and events that take place throughout the year.
Over the 12 months of our existence we’ve discovered that many of those people, organizations and, most importantly, readers also saw the need for theYYSCENE.com — readership continues to rise as more people discover us and those reaching out for coverage and partnerships also continues to grow.
While we are currently soliciting advertisers — for a rate card please email info@theyyscene.ca — the current economic climate has meant that we’ve yet to reach financial stability, yet to be able to make the site as comprehensive as Calgary deserves.
After reaching out to people, having discussions, listening to comments from our friends and readers, we came up with a path forward.
So to continue and hopefully expand our coverage we are asking for support from those who want local arts and culture stories written by local, knowledgable people via a Patreon campaign. You can click on the link here: https://www.patreon.com/theYYSCENE. (Please note: All pledges are in U.S. dollars, as the platform is based in the States. Should a similar and equally as secure and effective site arrive in Canada, we will look into switching.)
We’ve set what we believe are reachable monthly goals to keep the site going, help us thrive.
To do that, we’ve also set out a list of incentives that we hope will show you how thankful we are, including, for anyone who donates any amount, an invite to an exclusive party we’ll be holding at the beginning of March to celebrate whatever this campaign yields.
If this is your first time here, we hope that you’ll take a look around and appreciate what it is we’re trying to do and consider supporting it in a meaningful way by becoming one of our patrons.
If you are a regular reader of theYYSCENE.com, we’d love if you’d show us what we’ve done has meant something to you and help us to keep doing it, doing it better.
Cheers,
Team theYYSCENE
