Tag: young professionals

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The Waterfront Wednesday Mystery

On the final Wednesday of August, I took a road trip down to Waterfront Wednesday in Louisville. Waterfront Wednesday is put on by 91.9FM WFPK and is a free show that occurs on the last Wednesday of each month from April to September on a little piece of Waterfront Park in downtown Louisville. Each month the show features three national touring bands playing from an hour to an hour and a half a piece. Oh, did I mention it’s free?

Canada’s Great Lake Swimmers, singer-songwriter Will Hoge, and alt-country legends, Cracker all graced Louisville’s stage last month with the Ohio River as its backdrop. While the tunes were great and ran for four hours (starting at 6pm) this post is not a concert review by any stretch. This my friends is more of an open letter to you, the UrbanCincy reader, to get a discussion going around why Louisville can pull something like this off while we here in Cincy get cover band after cover band on our waterfront on Wednesday nights.

Waterfront Wednesday crowd gathers along the Ohio River

This is my biggest beef these days with our town and something I’d love to change, but the task sometimes seems so great that it is not worth tackling. Then I look closer (like I know most of us do, and we challenge our friends to do so too) and I see that things are starting to really cook! Midpoint is quickly approaching with a lot of great bands with bands from our same zip code, as well as bands from as far away as Paris, France. That group also did a great job lining up bands through the summer on Fountain Square, but I have to say that all of that seems to be the polar opposite of “name that cover band.” I think there is a middle ground, and I think Louisville has found it.

Louisville is doing a lot of things right with their concert series and they are bringing a good amount of people into town for it. Their mix of artists on any given Waterfront Wednesday is very diverse and don’t necessarily cross over, but people come for one and stay for all three. Will Great Lake Swimmers open for an entire tour for Cracker? Heck no, but for a night it seems to work! Oh, and because it’s free, people bring other people along with them. I have noticed in my two trips there this summer that most of the people that show up fall more under the “curious observer” label than “diehard fan”. People bring their kids along and there are people around that would be eligible for the Golden Buckeye if only they lived in Ohio. It’s a wonderful and diverse combination of music lovers that come to enjoy their evening. Outside. For free. Along the river. Shocking, I know.

So, to you the reader of UrbanCincy, I ask this… why not us? And just as (if not more) important, how can we do something like this? I have asked this question of people around town in conversations over the last six weeks and have received many different answers. Louisville has about 1.2M people in the metro area and we have 2.1M people, so you can’t say they have a wider base from which to draw. We both have universities and we are both river towns. Provide your rationale and provide your solutions in your comments, and if you are willing to try to find a way to make it happen say that too.

For those curious, the September 30 show headliner is BellX1 with supporting acts to be announced. I have to say, the drive is pretty easy and for what you get, it’s well worth the trip.

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Cincinnati: InOneWeekend 8/28 – 8/30

Is there something in Cincinnati that annoys you? Do you feel that you might have the solution to one of the perpetual problems facing city life in the Queen City? If so, then you should get involved with InOneWeekend.

InOneWeekend was founded to “help entrepreneurs experience the startup life in one weekend.” From there potential entrepreneurs can decide if the startup life is something they want to pursue further before taking that proverbial leap. The weekend’s are fast-paced, uptempo events that bring talented individuals together in communities around the world. In Cincinnati that event will be taking place one again this weekend on the University of Cincinnati’s main campus.

InOneWeekend is able to accomplish such a bold endeavor by leveraging support from their non-profit foundation, local chapter, volunteers and local development organizations. InOneWeekend also receives “vital” financial support from a variety of sources that is used to help make the expertise and ideas from local minds happen in one weekend.

On Friday, August 28, InOneWeekend will host their keynote speech (free/open to public) at UC’s Tangeman University Center from 2:30pm to 5pm. The speaker will be Ali Rowghani from Disney/PIXAR. From there the 100 participants selected to participate will brainstorm over 300 ideas with Jeff Stamp of Bold Thinking and vote on the concept they will push forward over the weekend. Then on Saturday the 100 participants will build the product and write the business plan and investor presentation. On Sunday those same participants will launch the new company and call it a weekend.

If you want to be one of the 100 participants and share your ideas and expertise in launching a new company, then please register in advance. Want to know more? Listen to Elizabeth Edwards from Cincinnati Innovates discuss InOneWeekend and what innovation is all about in Cincinnati on Explore Cincinnati.

Image from Glaserworks.
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Arts & Entertainment Business News

Newport Gangster Tours return for third round of fun this fall

Remember when Newport was Sin City? Some people around these parts do, but most of us don’t think of Newport as more than a destination for dining, movies, or a show at The Southgate House. Well, the fellas running the Newport Gangsters Gamblers and Girls Tour are getting the story out about the city’s colorful history and they do it with a passion and energy that only make it more interesting. Additionally, they are happy to talk up local establishments including Mammoth Cafe, Dixie Chili, Sin City Antiques, and York Street Cafe not only for their current contributions but also for their place in the history of Newport, KY.

In the spring of this year a few friends started the tour as a fund raiser for Global Service Learning Inc. and originally intended it to be just a limited engagement to raise money and help send local school kids to Jamacia. The trips are dedicated to serving a part of the population that could definitely use a some help, and it’s used as a teaching tool for our local kids to show how service and activism can benefit them in the long run.

After tickets sold faster than expected, they brought the tour back for Italianfest in June and they had over three hundred more people show up over the course of that weekend. Well, they have been on hiatus for the rest of the summer, but now the fellas are back for the fall offering tours through the end of November.

What should you expect when you head down to the tour? Well, it starts at The Syndicate and features a short presentation about the history of Newport and the characters that really made it like Las Vegas before there ever was a Las Vegas. The tour guides will talk you through how Newport ended up the way it did and give you some great stories about the personalities that give it such a wonderful history.

After about twenty minutes, you head outside for a seventy five minute walking tour through the city. Heading up Monmouth for three blocks there are plenty of stops to talk about all the history, including the seventeen gentelmen’s clubs that used to line the street, as well as a wonderful story of gangster activity outside what was the Mustang Club.

Back down York Street, the group shows you the building where all the chips (no, not the kind made with potatoes) were made, the lot that used to be the Weideman Brewery Complex, as well as and old haunt of Frank Sinatra. And while the history is very interesting, the tour guides could not do a better job bringing the stories alive and they have clearly done their homework. The tour is easily walkable as it totals not much more than a mile and it is very flat the entire way.

It’s no wonder that these guys were drawing 100+ people to their tours at Italianfest! They are great and definitely worth checking out. They hope to draw a few hundred people down each weekend through the fall. You’ll never look at Newport the same way again, especially all the parking lots around town. Tickets are a mere $15 for the regular tours, $20 for the Haunted tours on the last 3 weekends of October, and $40 for a behind the scenes tour which runs on the first three Saturdays of November.

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Arts & Entertainment News

Mia Carruthers and Taking the Stage picked up for second season

I will forever be a celebrity in my own head after the back/side of my head was featured prominently in Mia Carruthers‘ debut music video that came from Taking The Stage’s first episode. At the very end of the video is when I make my move and get a full frontal with the camera as I head back out onto McMillan Street. After we heard Mia perform this song a good six times everyone at Baba Budan’s knew the lyrics.

What makes all this relevant is that Taking The Stage has reportedly been picked up for a second season, and will still have the popular Mia Carruthers on the show with several other yet to be announced cast members. So be on the lookout for MTV’s film crews at a random spot around town, because you too could be the next Randy Simes.

If you have trouble viewing the embedded video below, you can watch the video directly on MTV’s site here.

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UrbanCincy writer featured in UC’s ‘Student Spotlight’

Read the full article here.

“Travis Estell has been designing and maintaining Web sites since middle school. Upon entering E-Media, Travis made his abilities known, when he took over the maintenance of the Bearcast Web site. Since then Travis has been voluntarily helping with many sites.”

[…]

“His weekly radio show, Explore Cincinnati, covers issues the city is facing. Travis spends hours each week researching topics to discuss and lining up guests to be on the program. The show airs on Bearcast and is available as a podcast online. Bearcast presented Travis with an Innovator award for his work on the show.”