I had a conversation on Wednesday night about something that is taking shape in our town. If this idea blossoms, it could bring significant credibility to Waco in the music and film circles generally associated with that huge spring event down in Austin.
A group called Waco Arts Media has times and places for the inaugural Waco Independent Media Expo. The two-day event will feature a film festival March 6 at The Dancing Bear Pub and a multiple-band concert March 7 at Common Grounds.
The film night will spotlight independent and student film makers from Texas.
The concert will begin at 1 p.m. at Common Grounds and will continue all day and night. The event organizers have tentatively scheduled seven bands, some of which the kids will recognize. We'll roll those names out there when everything is set.
Individual event and two-day pass tickets are available and range in price from $10 to $30. They can be purchased here.
That's 4 W's and 1 H if you're a journalism student and counting. Now for the remaining W: Why? The dates, March 6-7, immediately precede the world-famous Austin film and music festial South By Southwest. The idea of the Waco Independent Media Expo is to catch some of the traffic headed SXSW and get it to stick in Waco for a couple of days.
Since this is the first one, there's no telling how well that concept will work. If it catches, as stated in the lede paragraph, it could gain us some excellent film and music street cred.
Does that count?
I made a recon drive to China Spring today and was surprised to find a "Grand Opening" sign posted at Pho Cafe Saigon.
Does it count as a grand opening if neither the name or style of the restaurant has changed? Maybe they just didn't want to spring for the extra three characters for the banner that would have made it more accurately "Grand Re-Opening."
Either way, I was told former owner Paul Tran passed it along to new ownership.
Did they oversleep?
On the same drive, I found My Brewed Awakening to be locked up at about noon. Their new hours were stated as 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., so they should have been open. More on this story if we learn anything new.
