The Collaborator Party Sells Out NYC Event

Today, The Collaborator Party, headed by theatrical sound designers Lindsay Jones and John Gromada, announced that their event in New York City demolished all attendance expectations with a complete and total sell-out crowd. The party was held June 7, 2015 at Houston Hall in New York, and was the Tony night party for the entire theatre-sound community and their collaborators. The event was largely attended by industry professionals and seems poised to become a popular annual event in the future.

"We are so grateful for the amazing support that we received on The Collaborator Party this year", said Mr. Jones. "From all of our sponsors to our guests to many industry insiders who helped us reached this level of success, we can only say thank you so much, on behalf of sound designers everywhere and the collaborators who support them. It's been a truly humbling and transformative experience."

In addition to the sold-out crowd in New York, The Collaborator Party also hosted 7 "satellite parties" in Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, San Diego, Philadelphia, Louisville, Cedar City and Syracuse. Each of those parties reported attendance that was greater than expected with an audience of both theatre professionals as well as the general public.

"The only way to describe it is a grassroots movement of people who support and believe in sound designers," said Mr. Gromada. "We have been completely blown away by the overwhelming response around the country from people who want to celebrate all of the many wonderful artists who make up the theatre community."

Perhaps most remarkable was the online audience for the livestream, which was broadcast through the internet to the entire world. Kathryn Jones, founder of VirtualArts.tv, reported that the livestream was viewed in almost every state in the United States, and in 10 countries around the world, including the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Mexico and India.

"It's incredible," said Ms. Jones. "This is the most engaged and motivated audience we've ever live-streamed to. Our social media manager was exhausted by the end of the night. The Collaborator Party has struck a real nerve with people around the world. Social media postings using pictures and our hashtags were completely through the roof. They were still coming in the next morning!"

When asked about whether there would be a party next year, Lindsay Jones was somewhat non-committal. "To be honest, I'd rather be celebrating the return of the awards for sound design on the Tony Awards. We are all a part of the same community, and that's what The Collaborator Party is really all about. But, if that doesn't happen, then we would work as hard as we could to make another party next year that would be bigger and better than anything we did before. Having had such a successful first outing and with all of the support that we've received, I think we could really grow into something quite formidable in the future."

The lead sponsor for The Collaborator Party is Figure 53, makers of Qlab, the sound playback software used in many professional theatre productions, as well as Tixato, a ticketing software which will be used to sell admission to the party. Other sponsors include Lighting And Sound America Magazine, Masque Sound, Point Source Audio, LDI and Sweetwater. The official sponsor of the livestream is USITT, and the producer of the livestream is VirtualArts.tv.

More information on the event can be found at www.collaboratorparty.com.