Community runs via trust, right? So, if you become a trusted establishment or person running something, you’re guaranteed to get the faith of people coming in.
You have to keep your ears to the ground and make sure that you know who's who and what's happening.
For example, our previous writing and open mic community ballooned and got really toxic. So, I had to personally shut it down. But, I didn’t end it there. After that happened, I approached somebody from that community who I trusted, and I asked them to run what’s now The Word Garden.
To build up community, I find the people doing good things within their own community and I approach them. You can never know everybody, but you should know people who know good people, right? Like, Abi knows good people, D knows good people. Between the three of us, we have a lot of connections. So, we can find a DJ or an acoustic act or drag king, pretty quickly.
I also have a lot of confidence in myself and my team. I know that we can pull things off together.
When hosting events, people get hung up on controlling individual details and losing sight of the bigger picture. People are really just there to talk to and have fun with each other. And that's more important than generating money or controlling individual experiences. You can't ensure that every single person has the exact experience you want them to. That's just not possible. And if you're going to do a lot of events, you need to let that go.
How do you not stress out about money, when it comes to events?
If you're doing it for money, you're going to be stressed about it and that stress will collapse on itself. It's not a good feeling. And when you're trying to develop community, you can't also be expecting an immediate return from that community, right?
You really have to look at what's more important to you. Is the community more important to me or is the money more important to me?
Say you're hosting an event in your basement. I used to do that myself. I would just invite a bunch of friends and tell people to invite their friends. I just wouldn't care. And I wouldn't worry about how many people actually showed up, because I love people. I want to bring people together. And this is just gonna be a fun vibe.
But, we run a business and we have to watch certain things because if this place shuts down, the community dissolves. So, we have to have some boundaries for ourselves in that aspect.
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What’s your advice for folks who’d like to build their own third space or community?
The only way to learn how to do something is by doing it. Just try it. See what happens. If people think it’s cool, they’ll help you grow.
I didn't do this alone. It's been decades of me learning things.
I was a kid with the Optimist Club in my small town. Then, I was the panels coordinator at Anime North, and I worked with the Kidney Foundation as a peer support worker. Then, I worked in the hospitality industry and went to culinary school and I was doing all these event-based things on the side. My entire career has been events.
So, it's kind of hard to point at one particular thing and go like, “This is how you do it.” Because everything needs to be versatile and everything needs to be dynamic to be able to survive.
One thing that I don't see often enough and something that has really helped us out a lot is personal outreach. You have to talk to people and go, “Hey, I think you'd really like this thing that we're doing. You should come to our frat party.”
I also think developing a sort of city-wide community is really important. I know Josh from Danu Social House. I know Misha from DROM Taberna. I know Nigel from 915 Dupont. We don't connect that often but I like to be able to go around to all these new places in the city and just see what's happening.
Because if you don't know what's happening in the city, you're gonna be surprised when you get the rug pulled from underneath you, when somebody is doing something cooler than what you're doing. And I don't ever want that to happen to us, you know?
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This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
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