Per My Brother
Brianna Reed realized the need to organize the local geek community. With the creation of Nashville Geek Life, she hopes to spread the word that Nashville has many local geek-friendly events, including conventions, meet-up groups and unconferences. She discusses the need to promote the community, searching for sponsorships and even a sneak peek of what’s to come for the Webpage.
Please describe Nashville Geek Life.
– “Nashville Geek Life is an online hub for basically everything nerdy and geeky going on in the greater Nashville area. I feel like there is a central issue with all things going on. Not a lot of people know that practically every weekend or so, there is something really cool going on. We’re sitting here, doing this interview, at PodCamp. A lot of people hadn’t heard of that event. There’s HackNashville going on, it’s also Free Comic Book Day. It’s also Star Wars Day. Basically, our mission is to promote that kind of stuff and to promote the community.”
Your Webpage recently launched. How long did it take to get up and running?
– “We started this project back in February. At that time, it was me, by myself, doing my thing. I had a lot of people, who I’d never met before, who came out of the woodwork, who had heard of this project. It started with an idea I posted on my personal Facebook page. We ended up making an official Facebook page. We had a bunch of people who came out and volunteered. We all worked on it together, writing articles, creating content. It took us a month and a half, I think.”
What is the focus of your Webpage?
– “Well, we only have a few articles up right now. A lot of the writers’ focus is local event promotion. We have a few people who are writing about cosplay, and events you can do cosplay at. But as far as content other than our articles, we’re in the process of creating a searchable event listing. We have an event calendar that you can search by location, subject, date, etc. The other thing we’re trying to integrate is a listing of all the meet-up groups and clubs, here in Nashville. A lot of those are smaller, that we’d love to promote, as well. Those are the two main things that we’d like to incorporate. One that we’ve already installed is our business directory. If you’re looking for a comic shop, a gaming shop, you can find that online.”
How many people are contributing to the Webpage?
– “Twelve or 13. I’m the Executive Director/Founder, we have a designer, a Social Media Strategist, a Communications Manager, Event Correspondent, six or so writers… we have so many people. It’s been awesome.”
Is this an independent Webpage?
– “It is independent. We’re putting together a listed program of options, what you can do to sponsor us, because we are looking for sponsorships. We need capital to basically do more promoting in the community. There are things like banners for promotional booths at events, that do cost money. Money that we don’t have. So, if we can get sponsorships from people in the community, we can start promoting things like that.”
Are you trying to create big meet ups? Or just to create awareness?
– “Yes and no. We did a promotional event at Flying Saucer not long ago to create awareness for our launch. People have asked us if we’re going to do meet-up groups. There are a lot of meet-up groups that already exist, that we’d love to promote. We don’t want to oversaturate the community. It’s a great cross-promotional opportunity between groups.”
Can you give us a sneak peek of whats’ to come?
– “We’re working on an interview series. That’ll be rolling out pretty soon. It’s probably going to be at least once a month, where we interview local artists, crafters, writers, cosplayers. It’s kind of like a Very Important Geek type of thing.”
One of your writers is NashvilleGeekGirl. How did she join up with Nashville Geek Life?
– “We started our project the exact same time that she started blogging about events going on. A lot of people assume, if there’s two things going on at the same time, they’re going to compete. It’s silly. It’s for the community. Let’s promote the community together. She asked, ‘Can I come onto your team?’ I’d love to have you. We’re doing a lot of cross-promotions with her. She’s promoting her own stuff, but she’s also promoting a lot of our stuff, as well, while she’s getting the word out: Nashville’s geeky, you should hang out with us.”
What topics are you currently geeking out to?
– “I am getting into the Dr. Who community. That’s something I had never sat down to watch before. Everyone’s been talking about it. Apparently, there’s a really big Whovian community in Tennessee that I had no idea existed, until I started watching the show.”
What are some upcoming Nashville events that you’re excited about?
– “There’s a new convention coming out, I believe in July, it’s called Sweet Apple Acres Con. That gets me really excited because it’s not something I’m into, personally, but it’s something the local community has mobilized, and said, ‘This is something we really like, and this is something we’re going to make happen.’ Apparently, it’s going to be a really great for them, so I’m really excited for them. There’s a newer group called Music City Geeks, they’re kind of a meet-up group. They promote some of the local stuff going on — like we do. We work with them sometimes. They have a Geek-aritas, where you drink margaritas on Tuesdays at La Terraza in Antioch. We go to that, sometimes. Obviously, we’re at PodCamp today. Hopefully, we’re going to do a hard push at Geek Media Expo in November. We did some promotions at MTAC. Next week is the Nashville Comic and Horror Convention. There’s a lot of new stuff going on.”
For More Information:
– Nashville Geek Life Webpage
– NGL Business Directory
– NGL Facebook
– NGL Twitter
– Nashville Geek Girl
– Geek Media Expo
– Middle Tennessee Anime Convention