Wow. Just wow.
We are absolutely blown away by how our audience responded to our trust in them to set the roadmap for the next 25 years of Pickathon by taking the “You Decide” survey. Over 1600 of you took the time to share your thoughts, your passions, and your vision for the future of Pickathon. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. Your feedback is invaluable.
And the message is clear: You want Pickathon to stay Pickathon. You cherish the unique elements that make this festival so special, and you want us to fight to preserve them for the next 25 years and beyond.
Here’s what you told us:
This feedback is incredibly validating, and it fuels our passion to make Pickathon even better. You’ve chosen for us to not give up on the things that make us different, and we’re ready to fight for this unique and special festival alongside you.
What’s next?
Part two of this honest conversation is how do we keep all these wonderful elements of Pickathon going? Now that we agree on them we know we can’t cut enough to make a substantial difference financially. This is the crossroads we had come to prior to the poll as well.
As many of you know we built Creative Neighborhoods with passionate community members to grow areas we couldn’t financially support since 2022. This deeper understanding allowed us to see how we could logistically and financially grow all of these magical areas that make Pickathon so special. We understand we need to help Creative Neighborhoods raise money to make all of this happen knowing that it will be the rock that saves our Pickathon. This is a lot of work and so we wanted to make sure that this is what you wanted or if we had the option of approaching this from another angle. Many thought that we placed mainstream festivals as terrible experiences in our polls but we don’t feel that way, in fact we love and support many of them, that’s just not what we built Pickathon to be. The sliding scale was extremely insightful and we hope you go through it and click the demographics to see how others think.
We’ll be back next week with a detailed roadmap outlining our next steps. With this new data we feel confident that with the help of the Creative Neighborhoods team we can find a solution. In the meantime, you can explore the full interactive survey results here:
Want to dive deeper into the “why” behind all of this? In the latest episode of the Pickathon Podcast, founder Zale Schoenborn sits down with Matt Wagner, Executive Director of Creative Neighborhoods, to discuss the crossroads we face, the incredible impact of Creative Neighborhoods, and why your input was so critical in shaping our path forward. [Spotify Podcast Link] [Youtube Podcast Link]
Thank you for being a part of the Pickathon family. We are humbled and inspired by your support and belief in the arts and community we’ve created together. We think it’s one of a kind.
#Pickathon #CommunityDriven #Sustainability #FestivalFuture #YouDecide #CreativeNeighborhoods