Party Pitfalls

Roughly two months ago I began to visualize an East West relaunch party. Just today, I decided to pull the plug on the event despite my desire for some glam fun.

What was scheduled to happen on Oct. 24, here in our hometown of Arizona, slowly but surely seemed to be becoming more of a vanity affair and less of a good business decision. Not to say, I’m vain, no, but the magazine is like my child. So the relaunch, what we fondly call East West 2.0, is something I want in the spotlight, I want it to succeed. Frankly, I want to brag about how great my child is.

But a balance sheet, can always bring back perspective. In this economy, publishing houses are actually using events, both online and offline, to add to revenues, but it has to be the right type of event in the right location.
Our relaunch event was being rushed out with not enough time for major sponsor tie-ins and we were only focusing on the Arizona reader. While I love my town and my neighbors, we can’t neglect the bulk of our readership spread throughout the country. An event here, at this time when our overhead is higher than normal due to re-start costs, just didn’t make good business sense. The idea came two months ago, but the execution lagged, and we were just to far behind to turn a profit.

And if there is one thing I swore I would do different this time, it is that I would always think of the business first and not worry about what fancy/glossy things we WANT to do. The key is to stick to what we NEED to do to deliver our unique content and serve our community.

I guess this was my first test in this second act. We don’t NEED a party at this time. So with 4 emails and two calls, the party was called off just two weeks before the red carpet, the step and repeat and the lights were to go up.

And now, I don’t NEED to go shopping for a new outfit. Bummer.