Unveiling CityLife FYI: A Conversation with Ed DeLaPaz

When was the last time you were truly inspired by someone's journey? This episode features the riveting tale of Ed DeLaPaz, a man whose story is far from ordinary. From the turbulence of his early life, hopping between three high schools and grappling with the aftermath of his parents’ divorce, to exploring multi-level marketing, and then finding his true calling in the art realm, Ed's journey is nothing short of a rollercoaster ride.

As we navigate Ed's life story, you'll learn about his transition from an AmeriCorps volunteer to a renowned photographer, graphic designer, and event coordinator, and how a chance interaction with Tim Scales ignited his passion for business and entrepreneurship. Get a glimpse of Ed's dedication and hard work that came to fruition with his brand, CityLife FYI, a platform he uses to promote Richmond and Wayne County and showcase the vibrant community. Be inspired by how Ed balances physical and digital spaces to create innovative ideas that positively impact his local community.

But that's not all. Listen on to discover how Ed's collaboration with the Richmond UEA &  Depot District reflects his commitment to his work and his vision of a future where working with local professionals leads to a heightened awareness of the opportunities in Richmond. This conversation with Ed is not just a testament to his dedication and craft but also a testament to the power of resilience, passion, and a commitment to one's community. Don't miss it!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to another episode of our community. I'm Alfredo Diamond and I've got a special guest today Ed Delapaz, ed welcome.

Speaker 2: 0:14

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:15

Thanks for being here, bud. So, Ed, you know, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 2: 0:22

Yeah, so I'm a local photographer. I do graphic design, marketing and a lot of the events that happen in town. I'm either creating the posters, creating the flyers or helping actually get the events happening. So so I'm kind of connected to the community and trying to just showcase how cool it actually is to be in Richmond and Wayne County.

Speaker 1: 0:43

Okay, all right Now we kind of cross paths as kids and hung out for a little bit there, but where exactly are you from?

Speaker 2: 0:51

So I was born in Newcastle, indiana, so not that far away from here. But middle school I moved, relocated to Richmond and, you know, went to Dennis Middle School, high school for a couple of years but my parents were divorced so it was like going back and forth. So while I did go to Richmond High School and actually, you know, I was in your brother's graduating class, so that's kind of why I got that connection there I actually ended up graduating from Union in Murdoch, indiana, so I've and then I went to Newcastle my junior year. So I went to three different high schools through my four years of schooling.

Speaker 1: 1:31

Oh, wow, wow, Tell me about that. It's kind of that's what that's interesting. So tell me how that came about.

Speaker 2: 1:36

Well, because you know, sometimes parents divorce and sometimes you know kids are like well, I want to go live with dad this year or I want to go back and live with mom. And so it was one of those situations and by the time I was 16, I had my own car. I was pretty self-sufficient. So I, you know, decided, you know what I want to go out to Murdoch because my, my stepbrothers I had two stepbrothers same age. They lived with my dad, they went to high school. I experienced the Richmond High School and I was like you know what? I want to try my senior year at a small school, a country school, to kind of have that experience. So, richmond, I think my graduating class was six to 800. When I went to Newcastle on my junior year, it was like 300. And then my graduating class at Union Murdoch was 23 people.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Wow, wow. That's quite a vast difference there.

Speaker 2: 2:36

Oh, definitely yeah. So I had the realm of experience.

Speaker 1: 2:40

How long have you lived here actually now?

Speaker 2: 2:42

So after high school I moved off to college. As everyone does. We leave and we're like I am never going back to East Central Indiana, I'm never going to visit Richmond, newcastle or Union Murdoch again. So I went there, went to college. Did you know? Pretty well, I decided to go into computer electronics engineering because at that time I had the choice of well, I could go and become an artist because art was always my background. You know a cartoonist I've talked about this many times Garfield Jim Davis was my hero growing up Love Garfield.

Speaker 2: 3:20

Yeah, yeah, Definitely, and so that was my goal is like when I graduated high school, I had two choices I could either go to the Dane Institute of Art study art, or I could go and understand you know computers and electronics, because that was the big end. So, as I'm looking at the programs, you look at the what does an artist make when they get out of college and it's like okay, 20, 30,000.

Speaker 2: 3:47

And then you look at a computer engineer, they're making a hundred thousand. So you know, instead of following my dreams, I was like you know what? I am going to go for the money, so I enrolled. And so my first semester in trying to study computer electronics engineering, I realized there's a lot of math.

Speaker 2: 4:08

So as an artist, who was a, you know, math is math Didn't expect that. It was kind of cool. I got to put together, I got to build like little circuit boards, soldering that stuff because I was building things. But it was like having to know the math, having to do all that stuff, and I was like this ain't me.

Speaker 1: 4:28

Yeah, where'd you end up? What did you decide? The Dane Institute, or what college?

Speaker 2: 4:31

Well, so we are. Columbus, ohio, is where we ended up, so me and my two step brothers, well. But the thing was that, like after that first semester, we made connections in the business world and you know, the world of what we now know as multi level marketing was introduced to me and I was like, oh, all right, this is just a nice streamline, you know, get, get people and stuff like that. So that was kind of my first introduction to the business world. Was going through you know a couple of years of can we make this work? How does it? How does it? You know, how do you build a business, especially when you're right out of high school, dropped out of college, and people are saying you can make millions of dollars by selling this product, selling that product.

Speaker 2: 5:20

So I was a little bit hesitant at the time. But my stepbrothers, you know, were three guys and it was always one of those. All right, we got to be better than the other. So we were just grinding that. And then I started reading the content and reading the books, like okay, this doesn't really fit the vibe of what I wanted to do, because then I just started thinking about it. I was like, well, do I want to go down this route and then all my passion for cartooning, for art, is kind of lost in it because I'm just looking at selling products and pushing all that stuff out. So I decided to kind of like just step back from things. The brothers kept on going with it. They did pretty well, they actually ended up enrolling and served in the army and they actually did some tours in Iraq and everything.

Speaker 2: 6:10

But I moved back to Richmond and so, you know, didn't really have much money left, kind of like you know what. I'm just going to go back home, stayed with some relatives and then stumbled upon a job at the YMCA where they just needed someone to run the building that's downtown back when it was YMCA and kind of be that night gym manager in high school. So the thing was is that I ran varsity track and all three of us brothers played basketball. So I was, you know, for a 5'8 white guy, I was actually pretty good at basketball.

Speaker 2: 6:52

The thing was, is that it was, you know, it was just like one of those dreams of I could try to go and become a professional basketball player, but it was not going to happen. It was past that period of time and yeah, and that's when you started coming down, we started hanging out. But yeah, some of those games, yeah, that was during the time that Dominique was in Richmond. He was coming down playing all the time and everything before he went off to college and all that stuff. So it was a pretty interesting time and everything yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:23

And so what exactly took you down the path that go into photography?

Speaker 2: 7:30

So you know, I tried to do those businesses. They, they, they failed. Came back, was working for the YMCA and it was fun. I really enjoyed my time at the YMCA but, like, once again, it didn't fill that passion of the art that I was looking for. So I decided you know what, if I'm going to become an artist, I don't want to be a starving artist. I'm going to go back to school and I'm going to finish my degree and I'm going to finish it in business. So I wanted to go into marketing. So I re-enrolled at IU East to finish out my degree. So I was working part-time at the YMCA, started taking classes and then my senior year in college, my last semester, I had one elective and I was like you know what I've took in everything I can Introduction to photography.

Speaker 1: 8:22

Right.

Speaker 2: 8:23

So I'm taking this class, right, and I'm, like you know, just just doing whatever I can and stuff like that. And then two weeks before graduation I'm graduating high school, I mean graduating, graduating college and my photography professor comes to me and goes hey, Ed, have you thought about changing your major to photography? I go, I would if I wasn't graduating in two weeks. So that conversation kind of just stuck with me because you know, it wasn't that great of a camera, it was just a little steady camera and I don't know. It just kind of sparked something.

Speaker 2: 9:02

So I graduated, I was an AmeriCorps for IU East for two years. So I worked with preparing teachers to work in the classroom. Because I had all those years of experience of working for the YMCA and everything else. I was able to use that to kind of prepare, you know, soon to be teachers of how do you actually interact, how do you handle those type of situations. Because they had no in a classroom experience and they've already become, you know, a teacher for the next 20, 30 years. So that led me into a. So that was, my office was in the IU East Library On the second, where the bottom floor is WCTV. So my AmeriCorps was ending, and so I had to start looking for a job, and I got connected. Francis Yates, connect me with Eric Marsh at WCTV.

Speaker 1: 10:01

Shout out to Eric.

Speaker 2: 10:02

Yup, yeah yeah, and during this entire time, I'm working with Tim Scales. So Tim Scales was yep, he was my mentor through my four years and everything.

Speaker 2: 10:14

So I learned a lot about business and a lot about entrepreneurship from him. So I applied for the WCTV job because I knew that there was a little chance I could brush up on some tech stuff and I had the opportunity to kind of do some graphic design work. So I was there. I was at WCTV for about four and a half years. I kind of revitalized and revamped almost their entire systems with how they interact, how they put out content. A lot of the imagery that you still see at WCTV today is stuff that I created like you know yeah yeah, six, eight years ago and everything.

Speaker 2: 10:59

So through my time at WCTV there's a lot of community partners that would come in and film shows and one of them was Chamber Chat. So Chamber Chat, wayne County Area Chamber of Commerce, similar thing. I was working with them. I was getting the point where I was kind of doing a lot of the graphics, a lot of imagery for their show and at the same time I'm like I'm just still taking photos for WCTV of stuff, kind of still working on my photography skills.

Speaker 1: 11:29

But the thought right.

Speaker 2: 11:30

Yeah. So the thought of, oh, I'm going to be a photographer here in a few years was still not there. So I started working for the Chamber of Commerce. Through my experience of working with them on Chamber Chat and through that experience, they used to bring in a photographer out of town. Oh, I should, yeah, but anyways. So let's just say that I did a lot of efforts to bring a lot of what was done outside organization inside organization. So I became the main graphic designer, I became the main photographer and that just kind of added into the experience. And then the urge of back to you know, when I graduated high school, about starting my own business, started pulling on my shoulders. I was like. I was like, was it scary?

Speaker 1: 12:21

It was terrifying.

Speaker 2: 12:22

Yeah, yeah, it was. It still is at times when I think about that.

Speaker 1: 12:26

You got to keep that yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:29

Yeah, so, so that happened Right. So I'm looking. Okay, I, I got the urge. I love what I do, but you know, when you work for the, when you work for any organization, you get told. You know you got to do this, this and that, and, and there was a lot of events and a lot of things in town that I wanted to be a part of but I couldn't because of my schedule and everything like that. So I started thinking about that Well, if I make this change, if I do this, if I do that, I may be able to kind of kind of figure this out.

Speaker 2: 13:03

So what I started doing was I launched my own brand, so City Life. Right, originally I had a lot of other other different names and you know, when you're doing starting a new brand, you always get to think about the dot com and stuff like that. And I started thinking about well, a lot of what I'm planning to be doing is informing people. So I set it on FYI for your information, easy to remember, and then citylifefyi is. So that's where that came out, because I liked the idea of citylife, because originally the plan was I was going to blog. Citylife was supposed to be a blogging about all the cool stuff that I go to, because the major premise that this came out of during my time at WCTV and during my time at the chamber was there's nothing to do in Richmond, there's nothing doing Wayne County, there's nothing going on and I'm like no-transcript. I'm looking at my schedule, I'm looking, I have this going on.

Speaker 1: 13:57

I have that going on. There's tons of stuff going on.

Speaker 2: 14:00

So then I started thinking about that as like an okay, well, it's not that there isn't stuff to do, is that people are not?

Speaker 1: 14:08

knowing what's going on.

Speaker 2: 14:11

So I decided to kind of start working on that piece. So City Life launched it and it was supposed to be a blog. Here's what I'm going. Here's what I'm doing. Well, I kind of forgot. I'm a horrible writer, like I can't spell. I can barely spell my own name, c-o-t-p-t. Right? Oh God, I wish I had that like 10 years ago, good Lord.

Speaker 2: 14:33

So what I did was instead I just started taking my camera everywhere I went and just started snapping a couple photos and actually I kind of got the statistics because I wanted to kind of share that, because I was backing up my files and I was kind of curious of how many photos have I taken. So I officially launched City Life in 2018. And it was kind of like I was doing chamber stuff during the day. Once I was doing chamber stuff, I would go to an event in this photograph and then start sharing those photos and everything. So that process started in late 2018 and kind of started moving on, and then my official last day at the chamber was after the annual dinner of 2020. So I did about a year and a half of just the side projects, of trying to build this brand, going around, taking, doing as much as I can. So in 2018, my first year.

Speaker 1: 15:38

You're everywhere.

Speaker 2: 15:38

Ian, yeah, so I had a total of 40 photographs I took that I kind of promoted as City Life 2019. That increased up to 1,937. So then at that time I go out and then City Life is now like who? I am right? In 2020, because of the situations that we were at that time, they ended up dropping down to about 1,100 photos. But then that started ramping up again in 2021 as people were starting to do events and everything else again up to 3,405 photos, and then last year I breached 5,002 photos and then, as of this year, as of last week, in 2023, I've taken 5,112 photos. So, yeah, so I'm definitely within a month's time I will have taken more photos this year that I had, like the first three years combined.

Speaker 1: 16:38

And it's amazing because you can kind of listen to those stats and I'm kind of reading through. You know, you kind of started your business out, started growing your business, then we kind of had COVID and everything Coming out of that. You did 3,000 or whatnot and you've done 5,000 and you're on track to maybe another 25% on top of that for this year. That's just amazing.

Speaker 2: 16:56

Yeah, I mean I'll probably be about 8,000 because we're already hit into the event season.

Speaker 1: 17:02

Oh man.

Speaker 2: 17:03

So you know, we have all the Depot stuff, all the Main Street stuff, all of the community festivals and Christmas things that I try to be at and try to be a part of.

Speaker 1: 17:15

So, yeah, yeah, so that's kind of where the process is to you know, dropping out of college, kind of refocusing, and everything to where I am now it's just amazing that all our experiences kind of come together and one day it hits you like for me, ian, it's like I love, I love this, I love helping people, I love solving problems. I love being rewarded for solving problems. You know I'm doing what I'm supposed to do and it sounds like the same thing has happened to you pretty much.

Speaker 2: 17:46

Yeah, yeah, definitely. It has been interesting, because my goal with City Life has always been this is for the community, it's showcasing what the community is. So roughly what I started out the first three years, every single place I went and was a part of there was no fee, there was no charge. I'm coming and I'm showcasing exactly what you're doing. Well, what happened was that people were like, well, can you come and photograph this as a photographer? So I was like, okay, yeah, I'll do that.

Speaker 2: 18:17

And then it started into being, hey, will you also share this on City Life? So now it's a situation of there are things that I will. If it's open, free to the public and community-based, I will just show up and take some photos and showcase that. But now I have clients who will hire me to photograph their events and then I will also cross, promote that and share their story on City Life and everything. And they want that too because they realize that kind of getting the message out there is how they kind of grow their business and grow awareness of what they offer and everything too.

Speaker 1: 18:57

That's great. That's great. Man, I've got this segment that we're gonna do Grow City Hot and Ready or Cold and Steady. So I'm just gonna just shout out a couple of things to you and you just let me know what comes to mind and we'll go from there. All right, sound fun, try it. Yeah, let's go. All right. Favorite park oh favorite park.

Speaker 2: 19:16

So I do visit the ducks quite often, or Glenn Miller, glenn Miller. Man, like if you go to Glenn Miller. Those ducks own that street right there by the little pond, yeah yeah, so they're pretty cool. I also wanna say, cardinal Greenway, I spent a lot of time there. Just get on my bike or just walking is a really cool scene. That way too Cool.

Speaker 1: 19:42

Roscoe's or Starbucks.

Speaker 2: 19:43

Definitely Roscoe's. Actually, I just came from Roscoe's right before the filming of this Okay Pizza place. I have to go Suzie's Pizza, new York style, by the slice. I don't have to go in there and order an entire pizza. I don't have to go in there and, like you know, go through the whole process. I can just roll into Suzie's Pizza, grab two slices in and out in like less than seven minutes.

Speaker 1: 20:12

Ice cream.

Speaker 2: 20:14

Ooh, I mean I have to go with Olery's, but with Olery's though, it depends on the season. My favorite is their banana ice cream when they have the vanilla wafers in them.

Speaker 2: 20:28

But they don't have that all the time. So I have to keep on changing. My go-to, when they don't, is just vanilla with chocolate chip sprinkles and everything like that. And they know when they're out of like the stuff that I like, and they're like, oh, do you want vanilla? And then they'll put like they'll put a scoop, put a bunch of chocolate chips, put another scoop and put chocolate chips on top.

Speaker 1: 20:49

They need to come up with a signature dish for it Gallows or old Richmond Inn.

Speaker 2: 20:55

So I'm actually going to say Fifth Street Bagel, because that's also owned by that family and I spent a lot of time there too. I love their Sesame Seed Bagels, egg and Cheese sandwiches and they have home fries too, which is pretty good.

Speaker 1: 21:16

First place for a first date.

Speaker 2: 21:20

So the place that I used to take as the ladies is it was Improv, it was Diva Improv, right, that was always really cool. Fortunately, they have a mental habit this year, but also then too, like I've taken some some of the ladies to like Disney based events, so like they seem to really like that, love the ice, disney on ice type of things and everything like that. So it's either Improv, something comedy based, or take them to something Disney.

Speaker 1: 21:59

I see you often at the golf course, so golf or bowling.

Speaker 2: 22:05

So I'm left handed. Both of those are a little bit challenging for a left hander. So I have some friends who are into card games. They've kind of got me into card games. So if I had to pick a hobby I would definitely go with playing. You know, getting together some, a group of people on having some fun playing some cards.

Speaker 1: 22:28

I've been bowling for 30 years. We call it lefties. They got it walled up out there All right. So a little trick to Earlham Ivy Tech or IU East.

Speaker 2: 22:39

I'm a graduate of IU East. I love all three colleges but Red Wolf.

Speaker 1: 22:48

That's right, that's right, all right, what? Is one thing about our community that you would like to see come back.

Speaker 2: 22:56

So I would love to see that A I'm not going to say promenade. I know that's probably probably we get a lot, we need to bring back the promenade. But I would like for us to kind of go back to embracing the you know, the Hoosier hospitality, being more welcoming and being like, hey, come visit us, come and hang out and kind of having that wide arms, you know open type of mentality. All right, I love that.

Speaker 1: 23:28

Could you share a memorable moment or experience from your involvement in the community?

Speaker 2: 23:32

Oh, okay, actually just kind of talking about that. So I'll walk down to Roscoe's to grab my coffee and everything. So this was a spring time, I believe. But I'm walking, you know, I got a cup of coffee in my hand and I see an elderly couple that's kind of looking confused, looking around and I go, this is a little odd. So they they're leaving me down and they're like hi, can you tell us where the Veterans Memorial is?

Speaker 2: 24:08

And I go oh yeah, it's down. You know that way, you got to go this way and then you'll go into it. And and then I started saying, also connected to the Veterans Memorial, you have the Starr Jeanette and then you can go up the Cardinal Greenway. So I started talking about that and kind of come to find out they were just visiting from Fort Wayne. They wanted to come down. They heard about some of the cool stuff that Richmond had. So they took a, a weekend trip, came down, got it, stayed in the Airbnb and they were going around. So they started asking questions.

Speaker 2: 24:44

I was like, well, fortunately you're right into a person that probably has a little bit more information than than the average person on what you can do in Richmond and Wayne County. So so I'm always reminded when it being, when, when I'm planning events, when I'm talking about all the cool stuff that stays in my mind as a. Not only Are we promoting these events to people who live in Richmond and Wayne County, but there are people who do travel. They take their weekend. They hear that the Richmond Meltdown Festival is happening, so they will spend the day. They'll come down Saturday, they'll eat, they will do the activities, visit the local stores and then be a part of the meltdown.

Speaker 2: 25:30

And that's something that I think that we kind of get in the mentality of that Richmond is for Richmond but it's not Between. I mean, we are in the radius, you feel like a 60 mile radius. We're it right Also to that. You go to Indianapolis, you go to Cincinnati and you go to Dayton, but you got to look at that all the way up to Fort Wayne Avenue, all the way south until you get to Cincinnati. We're drawing in those people.

Speaker 2: 26:02

And a great example too is I do a lot of the websites for a lot of the non-for-profits in town. So I've been collecting the data, I've been upgrading, I've been implementing those pieces to be able to kind of grab the viewer, the visitors data and stuff like that. And one of the interesting thing that I started talking to the community and non-for-profits and businesses about is hey, do you realize, outside of like for non-for-profits in like the Depot district, right, the number one visitors is always Richmond, right, people in Richmond. But outside of Richmond, columbus Indiana and Bloomington Indiana are the next two highest viewers of Richmond Indiana content.

Speaker 1: 26:52

Really, that's an interesting stat. Why do you think that is so a?

Speaker 2: 26:56

couple of things. Right, we have Indiana University East. We have Donna Spears, who is a treasurer, right, so when she's going to Bloomington for all of the treasurers, but the role that she plays, she's talking about it, sharing that information. So what's happening is we're starting to see that kind of connection between the Bloomington college campus and IU East and everything. And I've talked to several students who are. They say, oh yeah, I got you from IU, well, iu Bloomington, and they've located here. So, yeah, I mean, if you think about that, right, if you're used to the small town type of feel of Bloomington, what are your options? Right, you can go to Columbus, indiana, if you don't want to go to Indianapolis. Right, richmond kind of fits that vibe. I mean, we have Erlum College which kind of has that vibe and everything else. So I think that's really where the draw is coming from. Is that we're kind of like the more Midwesterny feel than for a lot of the area that's around us.

Speaker 1: 28:12

You're so involved in such a positive influence. Where would you like to see our community in the next five years?

Speaker 2: 28:19

Hmm. So yeah, I definitely would love to kind of see, like I said, be more welcoming, right Like we have all the signage. When you cross the border into Ohio you have that nice giant arch. You know where's the giant welcome to Richmond, you know even going to Hollywood, right.

Speaker 2: 28:43

You know, think about that. How do we draw the people on 70? Off of 70, you want to say, oh, that's really cool, I want to stop by Richmond. What's going on here and all that stuff. So that's why I'd like to see is kind of us using the physical space of 70 to draw people into Richmond.

Speaker 1: 29:04

OK, ed, one person that you would like to collaborate with that you haven't yet on a project. So, kevin Schuck. Right, all right.

Speaker 2: 29:12

Yeah, we've been trying.

Speaker 1: 29:13

Thanks, buddy.

Speaker 2: 29:14

I've been trying to find a project for us to work on and everything but our schedules having aligned and everything like that. But yeah, that's something about trying to been working with him, trying to get something going. I've been going for like almost two years now.

Speaker 1: 29:27

I'd have to see that project.

Speaker 2: 29:29

It'd be wild Pretty amazing.

Speaker 1: 29:31

Yeah, ed. Are there any upcoming events, projects or causes within the community that you're particularly excited about or would like to highlight?

Speaker 2: 29:39

So one project I have been working on. I kind of spent my summer months working on a project. We kind of going along with city life. My number one comment I get is had I known about that event, I would have went. So I get that stuff all the time. It's like, well, they should have marked this better and all this other stuff. And I'm thinking, no, I knew about the event because they posted the flyer. I'm following their Facebook page et cetera.

Speaker 2: 30:11

But we cannot assume that every single person who's on the internet is going to be connected to every single event and not for profit out there, as much as that. We assume that that is the case, that, oh, I can put a post on Facebook and all of a sudden all of a rich man knows about it. That's not the case. So I started thinking about well, I already have most of these events all like my Google Calendar, or do you know what's going on there? So what happens if I just take this information? And then my original goal was to kind of share that as a Google Calendar. I was just going to credit calendar here and invite a lot of people here's what I'm doing and stuff like that. But because of my background in kind of this computers and tech stuff I was like you know what I can just make a quick UI interface which evolved into a website. So I launched at the beginning of this month richmanfyi.

Speaker 2: 31:05

So, for your information, playing off of the citylifefyi brand, which I'm starting to call the FYI network, yeah, yeah. So I launched richmanfyi and it's just simple. So the goal was it's mobile first. So I made it so that it would look nice on the mobile device so it doesn't load really heavy. It takes a couple of seconds to be upon how big of you know, how close you are to an actual five bars and things like that. But really it's highlighting all events. My thought going into it was OK if, if I ran into that couple today and they asked me what's going on in Richmond, I would say, oh, go to richmondfi, here's all the cool events happening this weekend. And so that's the mentality of is here's all the things that if someone was coming to Richmond that they could do this weekend. So that's kind of the premise there. So along with that I got to give a shout out to the Depot District. So along with the stuff that I do, I also do all the marketing in the events for the Depot District.

Speaker 2: 32:12

So we just had really two cool events. We had Richmond Symphony Orchestra came in and they did one of their evening performances. So rather than just set up in one place, what we did is we partnered up with a wine tasting, so we had five locations in the Depot. People could come sit down, listen to different types of music and then also participate in learning a little bit more about these businesses. So we had, I think, almost 200 people come down for that in a space that we were, you know, nay saying, and everything was doom and gloom at the beginning of the year because of the bridge construction, but people have really came out and supported the Depot District. I was blown away.

Speaker 2: 33:00

And then the following week we did dog's night out and we closed. You know, bridge construction was going on. We ended up, you know, took the risk of closing the street and we had another several hundred people come down and it was a totally different vibe, different feel, different group of people and they brought their dogs and it was a really cool type of thing, kind of showing the community that you know we are dog friendly, you know we do like pets and everything. So, yeah, so along with that, we do have a couple of upcoming events. October fest is coming up, we have Trick or Treat on Halloween and then we'll be wrapping up the year at the Depot with Christmas in the Depot, which is the second Saturday in December, and there's a lot of cool stuff that I can't reveal yet, but you guys definitely want to be a part of that. It's gonna be really cool. It's been something that we've been hearing for years that we need to do for one of the Christmas festivals and the depots.

Speaker 1: 34:02

Making it happen this year I'm excited to find out what they're doing.

Speaker 2: 34:04

So that's the little teaser for that. And then, lastly, after the new year, I also work heavily with the marketing and for the Richmond Meltdown Festival. So the way it works in marketing is that while everyone right now is getting ready, you know, for back to school, you have your community festivals. I'm working on 2024 events.

Speaker 1: 34:26

This is how it works right.

Speaker 2: 34:27

So now? So people are like oh, I'm so excited for Timmy to go back to school. I go really, because I've been working on Christmas events for the last three weeks and everything, so that is a little interesting. I work in the future, literally.

Speaker 1: 34:41

Ed, I think you're brilliant. I think everything that you touch is a success. Is there anyone that you would like to shout out today before we wrap this?

Speaker 2: 34:50

up. Definitely, definitely want to shout out Tim Scales. He's every time I had a crazy idea I'm like what do you think about this? And he'll go like what do you mean by that? And he would make me think about, you know, a lot of stuff that I was planning to do how to make it sustainable, how to think about the customer and everything else. So definitely want to give a shout out to Tim Scales. I definitely want to shout out, you know, the Richmond UEA. They support a lot of the crazy projects I bring to them On. You know, this is the idea I've had and they're liking. We trust you, ed, take it and run with it. So UEA Depot District you know my partnership with them has really allowed me to kind of grow what Richmond can offer and everything.

Speaker 1: 35:42

It's awesome, hey, man. So you got a lot of stuff going on and I appreciate you taking time out of your day to come join me for a little bit. It's been a great conversation. I wish you all the best and look forward to keep seeing you grow, thank you. Thank you, I'll see you next time.