From WXXI news I'm Leah Stacey sitting in for Evan Dawson and this is connections.

It was once again a year of change for city, Rochester's oldest alternative, now monthly magazine.

After a packed Best of Rochester turnout earlier this month, it's time for a check in.

During this hour, the city team will look back in 2024 and talk about plans for 2025.

From stories and video to events and community partnerships, have an idea for city?

Want to join the conversation?

Pitch us a story.

Give us a tip.

We're listening in studio with me today.

Ryan Williamson, director of strategy and operations for city.

I feel like that does not cover your full title.

No, there's I don't think we have enough time.

Yeah, that actually is a separate show.

Yeah.

Okay.

Jacob was our director for city.

Hello.

Hello.

Patrick Hoskin, arts reporter for city.

Hello.

Hi, Robert.

I like Harris, multimedia reporter for a city.

Ola.

Hey, you changed it up.

All right?

And of course, I am the editor of city.

This is our core crew.

But there are so many more of us.

And only five seats in the studio.

So dozens of us there, we contain multitudes.

Yeah.

So in 2024, our the entire team did change up a little bit.

And I have some questions for all of you, which, you know, I was nice and I gave them a heads up.

but I wanted to talk back to 2024.

Before we do that, I want to talk about best of a little bit.

I want to get all of your thoughts on that.

So we headed out Radio Social on Friday, January 3rd.

Jake was really in it because he was the mic.

Yeah, I got the microphone.

It was great.

I had a lot of fun.

I feel comfortable on a microphone here.

I am doing it right now.

It sounded like it was great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I will say we heard pretty much all of it.

It was really loud, but we we heard pretty much all of it was good.

Delano saved the day there, our day because we had a different mic set up.

And then there was this moment when it went live.

And I think behind this, behind the scenes, we were totally visible.

Delano and I were like, oh, we can't hear him.

Every technical difficulty, I think that you could have have happened in like three minutes.

It happened in like three minutes.

And it was cool.

I think that that lends sort of the very real idea that we are, kind of pulling this out of thin air, if that is the appearance.

Bootstrapping.

Yeah, a little bit.

yeah, they gave me I remember my favorite part of that whole thing was, he gave me a microphone with, like, a, I had, like, four feet of room, so I was, like, getting my ideas out.

And then we had to, like, give me a different mic.

And I was like, oh, a leash.

Freedom.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, it was cool.

It was a lot of fun.

That was really fun.

Yeah.

But once, once he got the mic situation, you were, you were live and we the, the back radio social is huge.

There's like 34 bowling lanes back there.

People were on the lanes.

There were other parties happening at the same time.

And then all of a sudden hundreds of people were just packing this in.

And Berto, you were behind the scenes with the camera.

So what was it like from your side of things?

it was a nightmare because I don't know where.

I don't know where to point the camera.

Oh, positive.

yeah, I like it in terms of, like, in a creative space.

I'm like, oh my gosh, there's like, no room.

Like, I can't, I can't get up high.

I like, I'm pointing the camera all over the place.

I mean, the video is out now, so I can, you know, say all the obstacles I had to deal with.

But, yeah, that was that was wild.

I shouldn't be able to tell from the video.

That's good.

You made it happen.

You got in people's faces in the best way.

Yeah.

And, but you're right.

There's not a lot of levels there.

Unless you were to, like, stand on the bar, right?

Yeah.

Get on the pinball machine.

Yeah.

Coyote ugly.

And that was more of like a after the event kind of.

Yeah.

You.

I'm not getting on the bar until later.

Well, and another thing that you couldn't see in the video was how sick Berto looked that entire fight with the vest.

He unfortunately didn't get any of that on camera.

You looked awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's kind of scary.

I think there's.

I think he's got a picture of you, though.

My heart was out there shooting photos and I think.

Yeah, your National Geographic first.

I'm pretty sure it made it into a foot.

Yeah.

And of course, you can see that.

And the video on our social media makes you official Rock city mag.

I got to plug it.

Yeah, I so next time, just get on my shoulders if you need to get.

I got I wanted to get your, the kick.

The air kick.

Yeah.

Oh did I do that?

You did.

I don't know if I got it.

Oh, yeah.

I was doing my, like, hardcore frontman.

Stupid little things winging around and it's great.

Almost throw in the mic.

Felt good.

So the rest of us volunteered as tribute to to chat with everyone.

And we were, I think, at different points in the crowd all night.

I talked to so many people that night.

Yeah, I woke up without a voice the next day, which is good.

I mean, that's, you know, from some of it was from, you know, competing with the volume, but some of it was just because I talked to a lot of people.

Yeah.

Did we figure out how many, how many people?

I think we said like it was definitely more than last year.

Something like, you know, one of those counters, like a clicker.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we need something to go around, do that and Pat, you can do that next year and then you can have a voice.

Yeah.

Yeah that's right.

Yeah.

And if anyone tries I was like wear a button that says like please do not talk to me.

I'm counting, I'm counting.

I shout numbers at me, I'm counting, I'm counting on you.

But yeah, I think this was I mean, Ryan and Jake, of course, have been part of city since back in the Village Gate.

Best of Rochester days.

We brought Best of Rochester back for the first time to Radio Social two years ago, so this was our second time there.

I would say this attendance was like a third to have more right than that first year bash time.

Yeah.

Getting back to like pre pandemic numbers.

Yeah.

And and how does it compare to the two of you think to Village Gate I mean totally different venue different setup.

We don't have all the vendors anymore.

Kind of wanted to make it easier for people to just attend and like have a good time and not have to schlep their, their wares.

Yeah, it had always been free, but it was a ticketed event.

And, you know, you kind of had to be on a list or be, you know, be an advertiser or be a, you know, a contributing editorial member or just a friend of city to be invited.

And I like the openness of just having, you know, a free and open event.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really nice.

And I feel like also this, I think I can say this because we like, organized those events.

I think this was a little bit more organized and centrally located.

I feel like there is a there's a stage, there's a point, there's a presentation, and lots of parking.

There's things to do while you're there.

And it's it's an accessible venue.

Yeah.

yeah, it's it's it's different.

And it's, what we.

I was about to ask how many people were there.

Was there anyone there with a clicker?

Maybe it was Patrick Ewing that did the same thing.

yeah.

And that.

Yeah, that venue's great because you can get so many people in there.

I also love that it's accessible and they are so great to work with.

So yeah.

we'll see what this next year holds in terms of best of.

But I think we, we make tweaks every year.

And one of my favorite things that we added this year, and I think part of this was Katie's idea.

Are you guys together?

The confessional booth.

Katie.

Katie.

Yep.

Yeah.

Katie.

Who is behind the controls somewhere in this building helping get us on YouTube right now.

Hi, Katie.

shout out she she ran a confessional booth.

And if you were there and if you were brave enough to go in there, she had these really difficult questions that she wrote out.

And obviously we've all had access to them for a little bit.

But I was trying to answer these because afterwards we were talking about and we're like, oh man, that was actually harder for people to answer than we anticipated.

so I thought maybe we would try to answer some of them.

Is there any long division?

I didn't look at the questions no longer than just one.

Oh, so I will tell you this.

You may skip.

so let's try to do, like, some rapid fire.

Ryan, do you want to go first?

I will go first, but I'm going to jump down the list.

I'm not going to answer the first question.

Okay?

Let me just read all the questions, maybe first so our listeners can hear them.

So we had biggest best of snub.

What's your bright idea for Rochester.

What or who should people be keeping an eye on in 2025?

What in Rochester are you most excited for in 2025?

And then we had 25, 20, 25 ins and outs.

So something you think should be in vogue and something that you think should just be out.

So example in long walks out vaping no judgment to anyone who vapes.

Those were just our examples.

And then what do you want to see from City Magazine?

Not Rochester.

The city in 2025.

Yeah.

So which one are you picking?

I'm going to pick the ins and outs.

Okay.

And I just I just thought of this because we were having a big discussion upstairs about TikTok.

Right.

It's very timely and I think my, my, out.

I'll start with that for now with the app, it's going to be social media.

But it's weird because my in is actually social media as well.

So my app it's going to be TikTok.

My N is going to be Letterboxd.

It's it's like cheating.

I mean you you almost letter.

But I know the boys are all in like a box.

I'm not on there.

Meaning that, Yikes.

We need a. Yeah, I just started watching movies, like, five years ago.

So you've never seen a single movie before 2020 only.

What about only Austin Powers and Austin Powers?

But, like, if you're going to have one movie, what about Bob?

It's a great movie.

Great movie.

Put it in your letter box.

Top five.

Throw it in my letter box.

Never seen it, so.

Oh it's great.

Richard, does this sound, so good?

It's great.

no letter box is really cool.

Like, obviously there's a social component to it.

You can, read comments, you can leave your own reviews and rate, but you can make lists of things you want to see as well as they just have some cool, curated articles and lists that you can go on there and look up.

I forget some of the the best ones that I saw.

But, you know, I went to the little last week and saw Nosferatu.

Berto and I are both there at the same time.

and I had to put it in Nosferatu.

I know Berta left his review.

I won't make him say it on air, but you have to go find his letterbox profile.

if you want to go read that.

But.

No, you know, it's it's great.

a little more like, centric around media and not just like, a garbage feed.

And I say that as somebody that actually really likes TikTok, but, you know, and this is maybe going away.

It's like the good reads of movies, right?

Yeah.

So people who are familiar with Goodreads, which I feel like is maybe an older platform than Letterboxd, I that's off the cuff.

I don't and I can't confirm there are people quippy on Goodreads, though.

Like, as I would say, the main thing on Letterboxd is like, I mean, they're are very studied in like sort of like film.

Yeah, like analytical.

I don't think they're long takes, but largely like the ones that tend to get most traction are like what you would essentially like back in the day would be like a really fired tweet, but it's of like, it's a it's like a film, like a quick film take on it on Letterboxd.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, love that.

We got to find places for that content now, I totally agree.

And we were talking about this upstairs right about like fostering community.

I mean, that's the boot.

And I anytime I'm on Letterboxd, I like I don't feel like anything is being drained out of me.

I do genuinely feel like it's additive getting that, which is a huge component.

So I totally agree with that.

I used to feel that way about Twitter AP.

Me too actually.

Yeah, it makes me feel like a very like a hopeless, earnest schmuck to say it now in 2025.

But like, really, I used to go on Twitter and like feel good.

Well and your your hope that you wrote in the front of the book for the best of issue was really along these lines.

Yeah.

And just trying to I think I was basically encouraging people to get offline, where appropriate.

I mean, it's also like, you know, you perhaps you're watching this or listening to this on online.

Yeah.

or holding your phone in your hand, which is also fine.

And, perhaps you know us as a print magazine.

we very much are looking to create great content that lives on multiple platforms that are online.

So I say that, you know, with full, knowing that there's a time also to just be like, boop, put it down and then go take a walk or go and try to have a conversation with somebody and.

Yeah, and like, again, like, it's very hard for me to say this because it's certainly not anything new and stuff like this gets said a lot.

But I was thinking about it a lot, at the end of last year because, you know, just thinking about my phone and how I it is like my arch nemesis and wanting to maybe try to change up that dynamic some way.

Yeah.

And I think for all of us, we know like that we were talking about this upstairs too, like we know the social media platforms that make us feel the worst.

and and the ones that are like for, for Ryan and I, we agree.

Like, TikTok has always been like escapism in the best way because we're not we are like, we have talked with us.

We don't know anyone on there really.

Right.

It's kind of nice early adoption.

I don't really have a community like, yeah, local people like in 2020 I remember like bored in the house.

In the house, bored.

Like that's when I got on TikTok.

Like, if you know that that viral video, it was early.

Is it a good time to, like, do a public service announcement about Twitter?

Sure.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

We we did make that announcement once, but yes, I don't know if we made it on this platform, but we're we're not going to be posting on Twitter.

We're just have kind of reached Soph retired our account and there will be no more, posting content on there.

Take it for what it's worth, but it's not a platform that we think is worth investing, you know, any time and energy into.

So a moment of dead air for Twitter.

Yeah.

RIP.

And in the second half the hour, we will talk about some other platforms that we have our sights on for 2025.

So.

All right, I want to keep doing this kind of rapid fire, but I like I like the side trails, like I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of those.

Yeah.

So, Pat, do you want to pick one to answer?

Since that's kind of what Ryan did?

Yeah, I like, I was trying to think ahead, you know, about what things people should keep an eye on for.

And one of the things that I think is really interesting is, just last month, like the, the East End venue anthology sort of reopened for, like, a two night only, couple shows with Joy wave.

And I think it's something to keep an eye on.

Is, are they going to do more?

You know, and, part of what?

one of the pieces that, I had co-reported in a previous issue of city with City of London, Kushner was looking at venues in Rochester and really, looking at what perhaps we were missing, you know, is there a is there a way that we can perhaps attract a little bit of, like higher tier, or perhaps more volume of touring artists, like just kind of figuring out what those needs are.

That was something that Dan and I wrote about in the fall.

And then this anthology, it's sort of two night stand with Joy wave in December, I think, really played nicely into that.

And so really just trying to keep an eye on like, is that because that was a venue that was singled out by a lot of the musicians?

We talked to the promoters and some of the other venue owners.

about being like kind of a best case scenario for, what the scene could have, both locally and for touring artists.

So, I don't know, I like I would love to go to a show that there again, it's been many years, so that could be something cool to keep an eye on for sure, I don't know.

Yeah, that and and I guess other venues like I think we had a conversation not that long ago about like DIY venues and sort of seeing how that plays into it.

And I think like from a, from city's perspective, not to like speak for the magazine, but I think like there are there are always we we do what we can.

And I certainly try to do what I can to, like, really be on the pulse of covering what's going on.

But to a certain degree, like there's just stuff that's always going to be happening that we cannot, you know, like that's very organically happening.

that we, we may cover when that time is.

Right.

And I think a lot of that happens in the DIY space.

sometimes it's like letting those venues and those folks like, you know, give them some, some grace and some room to, like, do what they're doing, see if there's a larger story there.

But yeah, like those those might be things.

Those are the things that I want to keep an eye on.

We might necessarily not cover them for a little while, but I'd like to see how those, you know, kind of those little seedlings start to bloom I don't know.

Yeah.

Is that is that a do seedlings bloom.

It sounds better than seedlings germinating.

Yeah.

Which I think is what they do.

Yeah I do think that.

Yeah.

Let's, let's, let's get the thesaurus out.

But yes, I do think those are worth keeping it.

Yeah.

For writers.

Yeah I mean writers works for me.

Have a take.

You are a writer though.

No.

Sometimes you slip in my subject line when I forget it for newsletters and I'm like, oh, that's good.

Still got it really, isn't it?

I used to write those bad boys.

All right, you're up.

Oh, that's right, the hotseat.

it's actually kind of, I think there was one of these questions that was.

What are you most excited for coming up in Rochester and Rochester?

Yeah.

I would say I know that we're all here because it's our job to be here.

We work at city.

this is not super related to my job.

It's more related to, like, my personal life.

but I've been I've been involved in the Rochester music scene for, like, my entire adult life.

And a good chunk of my, like, I guess, young adult to child life.

Child life?

Yeah.

Go with children.

Sure.

Yeah.

Childhood.

my childhood.

Yeah.

Nice.

but I've been playing in bands here since I was, like, 14 years old, and I've never left the city, so I've been, a participant and an observer and, like, a supporter of the music scene here.

and you see it go through a lot of changes and it ebbs and flows in, you know, people entering and people exiting and, college bands forming and forming and all of this stuff.

And it's really beautiful to watch.

And it's kind of it's fun to zoom out and sort of take a snapshot of the culture, over the last, like, you know, 10 to 15 years.

And I found myself in a position now where, I'm not as young as I once was.

I'm not playing, like in five bands, doing four shows a month in the way that I used to, which is kind of how I formed my personality in a lot of ways, was just hanging out with a lot of musicians, and I'm in a phase now where I kind of am watching people take the reins, that I do not know personally or recognize from shows or from my youth.

And I think that that is very exciting.

There's like a lot of people who I won't call kids because that's what like strange older folks do is I'll say like, oh, these kids are going crazy.

But these like, younger people who are substantially younger than I am, are doing a really good job, just like taking up the mantle of the scene here and like, innovating on the, the genres that are played here.

And, I think that's like where music is going in general is the melting pot of genre, and it happens on every stage, no matter what size it is.

And there was just, in the, in the best of issue.

I know I was just talking about how I'm like, firmly not a writer, but I did write, in the, in the, Best of Rochester issue.

And, Patrick, you curated sort of, a roundup of favorite music from Rochester of 2024 and there was an artist that I have never met in person, had never heard of, but discovered, just by virtue of looking for bands from Rochester and, they're called I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly.

It's trendy.

Trendy, which is just no vowels.

Trendy, trendy.

You put it together and that's what it is.

And it's this, like, wonderful.

I'll just say broadly, like vaporwave style music that I did not know.

There was a scene for here.

And I reached out to this person to make sure that they don't live in Rochester, Minnesota, and they live here.

and so I, I was happy to discover I'm always happy to discover little pockets of music that maybe isn't performed live very much.

Or maybe I just, you know, have never have never discovered before outside of just trying to poke around because I have, like, an assignment.

So that's I'm excited to see sort of what happens.

I'm always excited to see what happens.

And that's exciting to me.

Cool.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

Berto, I know you have one queued up.

Yeah.

you're going to tackle the one that scares most people.

Yeah.

The the best of snub.

because we just to clarify once again, for anyone who might be a little confused about best of, we do not nominate the finalists and we do not pick the finalists.

We are the messenger.

Don't shoot the messenger.

Well, yeah.

Yeah, that happens anyway, though.

Yeah.

you know, this contest has been going on for years.

We have continually said it's the people's Choice Awards.

and we love that for all of you.

But we really, other than providing the platform, throwing the party, we, see the numbers on the back end and we have nothing to do with it beyond that.

Correct.

And but you were getting a little heat from one of your communities and.

Yeah, it's not like specifically to me or anything, but just like in general, it's like I'm pretty deep into the photography community.

and so I get to you know, just, I don't know, be a part of it, which is great.

But then you get like, there's like the questions like, who is this person?

Or, you know, how did this place win?

Or how did this person win?

And I mean, realistically, the snub, I was thinking like, how do you how do where you know the best of snub.

And I would say, really, it's like that your your audience like that's who gets snubbed.

It's or like your, your friend or you know, we're all locally, we all know each other.

Right.

So it's like you you snubbed your friend essentially by not voting your base.

Your if you didn't vote your audience.

Yeah.

or just in general, like, even if you did vote, you know, maybe it's like sharing their stuff or if you were nominated and like, you know, promoting yourself and like, being proud of that, you know, because, like, if you're nominated, that means people put you in, like, not just yourself either.

Like, you don't you don't make it to like, a Final Four because.

Right, you are the only person that put your name in, you know, you got written in.

Yeah.

Like there's people who care about you and they want to see you succeed.

And I think that when it comes to the best of snub, you should look, you know, at yourself, your community and think like, okay, this person that I wanted to win, whether it's me or, you know, another person, you know, it's like, what could I have done to, like, help them, right?

And, like, it very much is like, I mean, it's a close race, like.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

Like, I was seeing the numbers.

It's like it can be a difference.

Like you might like.

I know I feel like on a grand scheme of things, there's like a lot of talk of, I don't know, my vote doesn't count.

Right like that.

That's like a lot of that, that talk about voting.

but like, genuinely, it's a handful of votes can make the difference.

It's wild.

and so like, I think about that, I'm just like, you know, if anyone was snubbed, think about what what did you do as an individual?

whether it was you or, someone you support or, you know, to maybe make that happen.

and I think that, you know, next this year.

Right?

Yeah.

I would take that to heart and, like, shout it from the rooftops.

Like, if you're nominated campaign.

Yeah.

Because like, people campaign for much like much worse.

Like, you know what I mean.

Like, so what about yourself?

Go to bat for your people.

Yeah.

You got to mobilize your base, right?

you know where a sandwich board on the sidewalk.

Why not for me, actually, you know what you're saying?

Yeah.

Lean into the marketing.

Where?

Where a Little Caesars costume to the party?

Yeah.

I will say, the folks who do often find themselves, like winning or having repeat wins or like three peat wins are people who have, I want to say, and I want to put this correctly, but people who have in real life community and connections with people who kind of put themselves there, because we especially with like running a publication that is for free public consumption, we are often very concerned with how our stuff gets out there.

And a big part of that is, is kind of living on social media.

And I think that that way of thinking can skew a lot of, a lot of hearts, minds and brains.

And I think a lot of these people who are continue, like, have continued success with this sort of thing, engage their communities like are there on the regular on the very regularly.

So I don't know.

That's the thing.

If it's if it's something you're interested in winning, you can probably I said this last month, I was like, you could probably hack it.

I, I before I worked here, I, I did I was like I asked all of my friends like, could you nominate my band?

And then we got to go to the party.

And then the next year they started working out here or just like, oh, you can hack it, meaning you can do it.

You can, you know.

Yeah, I did it before I worked here.

And it was it was not it was not terribly difficult either.

You got a marketing campaign for yourself and mobilize your base to go out there and vote for you.

Yeah, unapologetically.

Like, just do it like, I don't know, I and it's like, no, I don't know, animosity towards anybody.

Like, congrats to everyone who's won.

and but I just think it's like something that people should know.

Like it genuinely.

I think it's something you should be proud of.

Like it's cool when someone, mentions your name in a room you're not in.

Right?

This is like, this is a really big room.

Yeah.

I mean, we were all there.

Yeah, this is a huge.

And Jake's going to say your name, and Jake's yell your name into a microphone that keeps cutting, and he might do an air kick, and that's.

Yeah, I don't know.

I feel like I'm just hoping that that message carries on to this year because, I mean, it would be I. I like the three peat winners.

Right.

Like you like the repeat winners.

But I also love an upset and a little underdog love.

And.

Right, like, sure, first year you get nominated and it's like, okay, and if you if you're on there like you have a chance, like way more than you think.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

We're I, I'm not doing this just to do I'm going to go really quick because we got to go to our only break of the hour.

I am going to pick the, what should we be keeping an eye on in 2025?

And I'm going to throw it back to the story I did about the city's upcoming arts plan, because I think we should all be keeping an eye on that, not only to give feedback, but also if there's going to be artists calls for more, advisory boards, things like that.

But but where's the money going for the arts?

I think we should all be.

I'll be keeping an eye on that.

As media, as consumers, as artists, creators.

so that's one that I will be watching for.

I also am really keen to see public arts funding come back in a real way.

You know, we have a mayoral race coming up and I think this is something that all of the candidates should be taking very seriously.

What are you going to do for the artists?

What are you going to do for the arts community?

So we're going to take our only break of the hour.

And when we come back, more from the city team.

I've got Ryan, Jake, Patrick, Berto all in studio with me.

I'm Leah, we are the city team and we will be right back.

I'm Evan Dawson, coming up in our second hour, my colleague Gino Fanelli at KCI is hosting the program about cannabis legislation and update on dispensaries, answering any questions you may have.

While the legalization of recreational marijuana.

It has been a long time coming with some delays in the process, Geno's got the update talking about it next hour.

One thing that's out for 2025 feeling overwhelmed by an endless barrage of headlines, let Morning Edition be your one stop shop for staying informed about the news of the day.

We bring you a mix of national and local stories, so you can stay up to date on the new presidential administration and what's happening in your community.

Take control of your news this year and start your weekdays with Morning Edition.

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Tomorrow morning at five you.

Welcome back to connections.

I'm Leah Stacy, sitting in for Evan Dawson.

And I am here with the city magazine team.

And we're talking about a look back on 2024 coming off the Best of Rochester awards just earlier this month.

And we are now in the second half of the hour going to talk, looking forward to 2025.

And we've got some things we're excited about.

First, I want to go to some reader feedback that we got.

I have an email from Brett.

He said Non-City residents would benefit from possibly a small section in the back of the magazine that identifies parking locations for each respective event featured in your publication.

this is really interesting idea.

I'm not a non city resident, so I'm very familiar with the parking downtown.

I think that may be true for maybe everyone at this table.

a couple of things that I think are important for Non-City residents to know.

A lot of our venues do have parking that often surprises people, especially with city venues.

especially the theaters have parking.

Sometimes you might want to bring cash, especially, you know, if you're going to show it to you.

But a lot of times the parking lot is 5 to $10.

but another thing to note is that city street parking after 6 p.m. and on the weekends is completely free, and there is an abundance of street parking in the city.

Anybody want to weigh in on that more?

One of my favorite things to do is to stop people at meters on weekends be like, don't do it because it'll take your money.

Yeah, yeah.

I like to go and be like, hey, stop, you know, physically intervene.

I can't do that.

But yeah, that's a public thing.

But I'm trying to think of like a thing that I've gone to downtown recently where I have really had trouble finding parking.

And I think it was, Holiday Village, but it only took me like five minutes longer.

I mean, you might have to walk a little bit, but there there's an abundance of of on street parking, especially downtown.

So there's like this.

But yeah, the walking thing is like, right, there's an interesting miles.

We get mobility issues, you know.

Totally.

Yeah.

No, of course there's usually a way to like drive up if you need to drop someone off and then, you know, send someone to park.

That's definitely something worth taking into consideration.

And, like, brush up on your parallel parking skills if you need it.

I teach classes.

I mean, I only had it, I've only had parallel park like twice in, like the last two years, and I nailed it every time.

But Gratulations just it's really like, way that I'm just putting that out there.

and one was on a on a curvy road for Rock Holiday Village.

Yeah.

So I mean, it's not it's not a bad idea to do that.

I will say, I think that in our, our online listings, we try to have spaces for, event submitters to put details, like you know, parking and accessibility and that kind of stuff in there.

So hopefully, you know, like, not probably not in print space is at a premium.

you know, but online I encourage if you're, if you're submitting events to offer those kind of details if you can.

And I also think like usually almost all of the venues will have that information to like on their website.

I realize that's like another step, but like in a pinch, if you can't seem to find like typically I have found that.

So I feel like if you're buying tickets or something that's usually included in your confirmation, especially with something that's like a touring show.

but I would say if you want to hit us up and you need a quick answer, our social media is always a good way to reach us quickly.

at Rock city.

Meg.

At Rock city.

Meg.

Yes?

Hit us up or comment on Facebook.

We have an email from Roger.

a few years ago.

So this might be pre me, Pat and Berto for sure.

because I just searched for this and I couldn't find it.

City had an article claiming that classical music was dying.

Since then, there has been no mention of classical music and no concert listings.

There are many outstanding classical concerts in Rochester.

Why such strong coverage of other types of music in city, but no mention of classical music?

a couple of things here, so I do.

We did have definitely a change in staffing over the last couple of years.

And again, I couldn't find this article.

I know Ryan's checking right now.

I disagree with that premise.

This is the home of the Eastman School of Music.

Rochester, New York is never going to be a dying classical music city.

we're going to just go ahead and say we don't agree with that.

If that happened at any point in our coverage.

and we do have, a bit of classical music coverage that I can recall in the last year especially, and in our daily to do list things, which Patrick, you manage though.

So do you want to speak to that?

Yeah, definitely in daily to I mean that's sort of our, our monthly calendar.

it always reflecting RPO shows.

Eastman shows any number of things happening.

so that's always as well as in our newsletters like our C newsletter that goes out every Monday, as well as like our Face the Music newsletter that comes out.

I always try to put at least one, if not multiple, classical offerings.

because, yeah, there's definitely no shortage of them.

and then, you know, Jacob, you brought up, the end of year sort of music roundup.

We had a couple classical picks in there as well.

written by, diverse, like classical motus, like a total slamming, which was really great.

I think that's something also just to keep an eye out for in 2025, we're really trying to like open up a little bit the diversity of contributors to the music coverage.

both in, you know, in terms of who's doing the coverage and also what is being covered.

So I think that that may also help with this question or this, this observation.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to that too.

Yeah.

Stay tuned.

Roger.

We got some stuff coming your way.

I did, I will say I just got stopped outside of the studio on the way in here by Mona.

Sarah told me.

Oh yeah.

And we talked a little bit about how do we ensure getting, you know, more classical content on the calendar.

So it is, you know, it is top of mind.

It's something we, we strive to like solve.

Yeah.

Great.

we have a caller Sue from Buffalo.

and if we could patch her through, I think she has something she'd like to say.

Hello?

Hello, Sue.

Hi.

How are you?

Good.

How are you?

Doing great.

I feel like I know you, I want to give a shout out to the Love City crew, and especially to my wonderful son, Patrick.

this is so wholesome.

I love it.

This is great.

We have cameras in here now so everyone can see my face turning red.

Oh, well, you know, it just brought me back to listening to you when you were on, Saint Bonaventure.

And I'd be listening on the computer wishing you were home with me.

And you know what?

I have to shout out.

I do have to shout out my mom and both my dad.

I really appreciate you saying that, because being part of college radio is actually what got me into music so heavily, which then led me to pursue arts journalism, which then essentially led me here and back on the radio.

So truly like and truly it was, you know, mom, it was you sending me a cool email.

Being like, that was a great song.

Or like, you know, catching the show.

So I definitely think, that's that's super helpful.

So I appreciate that.

That's great.

Thanks.

Can you introduce me to a lot of music I would never listen to?

But yeah.

So keep up the good work, you guys.

Thank you, thank you.

Hey, mom.

Mom.

Haskins, can I ask you a question?

Sure.

Okay, so yesterday, I was delivering some magazines out to the chilly library.

And as I was going to drop them off.

And this is this is related, but she said people really love this magazine.

It goes like hotcakes.

And this was the second time we were dropping off there for the month, because we do, you know, a restock to make sure everything's full and the woman that told me that, it goes like hotcakes, she said.

And, you know, I know I know the Haskins guy.

I know the Haskins family.

So we're going full circle.

I used to work there.

There you go.

So while representing a permanent job after 25 years of teaching.

So.

Yeah.

That's great.

So that's what we're talking about.

Literature, arts.

It's all in the face.

It's all connected.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Mom.

Yeah.

Okay.

Love you guys.

Bye bye.

You too.

Bye.

That's great.

My heart just exploded.

Yeah, I feel like.

Can you have, like, a bring suit at work day?

I think that would be terrific.

Yes.

Terrific idea.

Let's do.

Yeah.

In addition to Annie.

Oh, yeah.

Of course.

We've got to bring you the whole.

We'll get three generations in here.

But, you know, also shout out to the Twilight Library because I think that, like, in terms of, arts themed stuff, they have one of the, like, best selection of music books, I think, in the all of Monroe County.

So it's really shout out to them.

Yeah, I've been visiting them very regularly for that reason.

So cool.

Shout out.

Okay, so, I, I want to take this forward where there's so much we could still talk about in terms of 2024.

Just it was a wild year.

I think we can all agree on that.

and so 2025, I kind of just want to go around and I think I'm going to move myself to going last, because I want you guys to have a chance to talk about some of this stuff.

But we have some plans.

They're not all finalized, but we have some ideas.

we had a kind of a city strategy planning meeting, unfortunately, like a month before Berto started, so in August.

But he has played catch up, I think.

Yes.

Yeah.

Feel like I caught up.

We caught up actually.

Yeah.

Yeah we did before this show.

Yeah.

Yeah it'd be.

Yeah, yeah, it would be.

We did.

So I think I have some questions here.

Like what are you looking forward to either covering or something else in city.

something you're looking forward to in Rochester.

We're kind of going over the same things here.

I do want us to address at some point.

What's something you wish people knew about city?

Maybe we'll save that for last if we have time.

but just are various parts that make this all come together.

It's a very small core team, as I mentioned.

You know, we have a lot of support from within the building, from radio, from TV, from the investigative and more hard news journalists, you know, their their bylines, their work are is appearing monthly and everything we do.

But for the core team, that kind of like sets the tone and, you know, works outside cross collaborating with these departments.

We have sort of like our jobs.

Right.

So I want you to talk about quote unquote, your jobs.

So, Ryan, you're multi-level, hyphenated.

You cover a lot of ground with your job.

Literally.

Yeah, literally, literally days.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm in a car.

Yeah.

you know, our circulation, I mean, we definitely want to make sure that we are we are out there.

We're trying to expand a bit into the Finger Lakes.

We've seen some growth in 2024.

We have really dedicated delivery drivers that help identify stops that are either asking for us or they think would be, you know, good spots for city to live and good pick up, in the community, which is really great.

And we, you know, we want to have a kind of a diverse but spread out and growing map of all of our stops.

So, actually, after the best I've, I heard from maybe four or 5 or 6 different places that I can only assume it was not a coincidence that, you know, that all happened right after bad stuff.

They probably heard it.

So, you know, that incremental growth is great.

I love seeing you know us find these places.

I'll see, you know, places close.

Rip bodega rip petite poutine, which we're going to go get some lunch right after this to go get some poutine as a team, which is what I'm looking forward to most in 2025. it's so soon, you know?

But if you have if you have questions about circulation distribution, you can email me Ryan at Rochester hyphen City News.com.

yeah, I kind of wear a lot of different hats.

Another one that, I'm most excited about is I kind of manage a lot of the vendors that help things run behind the scenes here at city, not the, you know, traditional content, or design.

That's that's kind of Jake's wheelhouse now.

But, you know, things like our calendar, which I hear anecdotally when I'm out and I'm sure you guys do, and I'm sure, you know, we just heard from Roger that called about, you know, our calendar, people, people love looking for events.

People love know, being in the know, you know, when when I'm, you know, dropping magazines off in Livonia at the grocery store, you know, what do you what do you like about city?

What do you like most and why do you pick it up?

I just love being connected.

I love knowing what's going on.

I want to, you know, I want a community, even if it's just through these pages.

Right?

they feel like they know what's going on.

So we do have a new calendar I'm really excited about, that has launched kind of a soft launch.

and it is more robust than our old calendar.

It's actually, the vendor is another kind of like they're tangentially related to alternative publications that Leah and I met in Charleston at a conference last month, so they really helped us.

The platform is fantastic and platforms way more robust, and we have a local partner here who we do really believes in.

I'll let you talk about that, but really believes in people getting this information about events that they can attend.

Yeah, we we have to mention the support from Rochester Area Community Foundation.

you know, we share, a shared goal here.

and their investment is bolstering the vitality, the arts and culture in Rochester, and supporting city.

You know, there are community, community based organizations like us, integrate the arts into the fabric of our community and work to advance the arts locally.

and we cannot do it without the support of Rochester Area Community Foundation.

So shout out to them and look forward to more of the calendar.

You know, coming.

We're kind of, evolving it and growing it and tweaking it, but we hope to add features, you know, like the, you know, accessibility, buttons and things like that.

You can add your events and you can also just go browse for cool events.

Yeah.

I mean, our bandwidth as, as people know, is somewhat limited.

We want to cover everything.

We can't.

This is a great place to ensure that your event is being listed somewhere in the city umbrella.

Even if we don't have the, the power in our team to physically send someone to cover it, or if the timing doesn't work for the print edition or for a web story, you know, it's still getting in there.

It's still getting those eyes from our audience.

So definitely submit to the calendar.

we do have a quick question from a caller.

Marilyn from Rochester would like to ask us a question.

Hi, this is Marilyn Manchester, New York.

I know the chairperson.

you know what?

You don't trust a lot, which this year is going to be on September 20th, 2025.

And I'd like to know if our festival can go on your calendar because we have music for your vendors.

We have fun for the whole family.

You know, Northwest Village is one of one of the most talked about and most in-demand neighborhoods.

Yeah, I've been to this festival and it's lovely.

this is a great and very timely question.

So we were just talking about our new calendar and it's very easy for you.

Yep.

Very easy to submit that information.

But also in May we do our giant festivals issue and we kind of highlight the upcoming festivals for festival season.

We go through October.

So your festival, information would be something that we would love to have for that.

Okay.

How can I submit to you my best of all news from from graphic arts that I have to share.

Marilyn, you can go to Rock city mag.com/events and put that in.

You can also find our contact information if you want to reach out to Leah or myself for more of that.

Yeah.

That's great.

I'll do that because, we like to partner with you because I know that the five a side magazine puts this in there, and there are, festival listings.

Great.

Well, we would love to have you in ours as well.

Thank you so much for calling.

You're welcome.

Thanks so much for the information.

Talk to you later.

Bye.

See?

The system works.

The system works?

Yeah.

It's truly like you get to see a play out in action one at a time.

It's cool.

Well, all right, so we're we're getting low on time, but I want to get to everyone.

So heads up you're going to give us the two long generated version and then people can read it more about it.

Right.

but I want to move on to Patrick and, you have been having a lot of meetings with people in the arts community.

You've been going over rehearsals.

You are very heavy in the performing arts side of things.

Yes, as well as doing our music newsletter every month.

So talk about that.

Yeah.

And I mean, one of the cool things is like I so I grew up here in Rochester.

I've moved back about four and a half years ago and I think like being able to do that.

is is great.

I love being here and but but also like a bit of the distance then sort of requires me to actually have those conversations, to be able to actually meet people, to go to different places, because I don't necessarily have like a continuity of knowledge.

So having great conversations with people, going to rehearsals for plays, going to concerts, going to all sorts of events is a great way to, to kind of get that knowledge base and then.

Yeah, and then sort of and, and trying to translate that and let people know in the newsletters, in print, what we're doing, reporting on the arts, as my arts reporter title would say, you started reviewing shows.

That's true, that not not just music, but theatrical productions.

Yeah, that's that was your new thing this last couple of months.

Last.

Yeah.

Like 20, 24 new things.

So I'm going to go full steam ahead in 2025.

Let me go review some sort of other performance.

You Shakespeare.

Let's do it I love it.

All right.

Take you are responsible largely for our visual representation and in all the ways.

so we did some new stuff.

But talk about that.

Yeah.

I think the thing that I'm, I'm looking.

I'm so sorry, Gino.

Finale is just looking right at me from outside of the studio, and I love that because shout out to him, he's really waiting to shout out, you know, he's hosting the next hour.

Recently had a birthday heart of gold.

I love this and I just wanted to say I'm looking forward to hanging out with Gino in 2025.

Okay, but another thing I'm really looking forward to, our staff has changed a lot in my tenure here, and I'm also just realizing that this is my first time out, er, with Ryan, who's been my boss for seven years.

Also, we've never done the radio together.

Yeah.

one of my most important personal relationships.

Our first time on the radio together.

but speaking of staff changing and not changing, we've we've had a lot of new people come in.

I've had the pleasure to work with a lot of really talented arts writers and reporters.

Straight up hard news journalists like, I just shout it out, the Gino man.

and, and on the visual side of that, I'm really, really excited.

every time I get to work with, like, new people, especially people like, like Berto, I feel like this is now my third time on connections coming on and being like, I can't wait to see what Berto has up and see for this year.

because I've never worked with someone like Berto, and I, and I've also never worked with someone like Patrick.

And also there's no one like these two people.

but I'm really excited to, change the way I work to fit with how they tell stories.

And, for me, I have always sort of been a default de facto photographer and visual artist.

And I don't want to, you know, make any, false claims about my skill set.

I took a lot of pictures for this magazine.

And as you'll see, I am taking less and less.

And that is an intentional move because we have someone more talented doing that and telling stories visually in that way.

So that's very exciting to me.

And I'm just looking forward to forming the way I work and present these stories around the people that we have in house and our current roster of freelancers who are also excellent.

So it's an exciting time to be me, and none of you get to do that, but I certainly do it.

It's, it's a very congratulations.

It's a it's a fortunate position for me.

I really appreciate it.

and I can't.

Yeah.

It's just really nice.

So that's what I'm looking forward to is.

Yeah, my home is sweet.

Hold my hand for now.

I'm just going.

You will do.

I wanted to, yeah, I know people want it.

Yeah.

So that's me.

That's.

I'm next.

Yeah, yeah.

So that was awesome.

Say something nice about me, Berto.

Well, I just it's funny because you.

You talking about that?

I feel like I can kind of piggyback off of it because we talk often when we're working, collaboratively.

And how, like, we have our respective, like, programs that we're, like, working in, like.

And we, like, geek out and, like, I love when, you know, like, we're in the flow, right?

And like, we're like, just bouncing ideas.

I mean, like, throw it in the file, whatever.

It's 445.

We're drinking coffee.

It's amazing.

Gary's coming in.

We're going to talk about the Miami Heat.

We are going to talk about the Miami Heat, that's for sure.

Yeah.

And, yeah, it's it's great.

and I think it's nice to know that, like, the especially because I've had I probably like 7 or 8 years of like freelance behind me as well.

So like the full pipeline, seeing things from like the planning stage all the way to getting it in front of people, it's nice to know that, like, I have this, like, incoming, work flow, and then I can hand it off, and I know, like, all right, it's going to get, like, it's taken care of.

Like, that's good.

It's it's great.

Like.

So the teamwork is just it's incredible.

but that being said, that makes me think of, this year and like, what I, what I do here, which I do pretty much all like a lot of the photo video stuff.

So if you've seen us on social, there's a good chance, my hands are on that video or or something.

and photo as well.

And you kind of see that popping up more and more on each issue.

And also November and December I was no November.

And yeah, maybe November in December.

Yes.

Those are your covers.

Those are my covers talking about.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I were checking with me to make sure they happened and I was like, we were we were we went, we we did that.

We did for sure went down.

but yeah like so I'm just excited to keep like pushing the boundary.

because it's cool when I can like, be inspired and there's not like this, like box.

Right.

So it's like, oh, you can't really do that.

It's like, if that's I like I like where it's going.

If you can get it done, like, let's do it.

Yeah.

2025 we are putting film photography on a print magazine, and there are over 40,000 of them that exist in the world.

And I feel like if you reached back ten years and told all of us, like, just so you know, you will be working at a print publication that is thriving, that has film photography on the cover of it, that's just a crazy sentence.

That is huge.

It's exciting stuff.

So I take it for granted.

It's so awesome.

And I love like the like, this is kind of also touching on the what I wish people knew about city just to kind of, tie things together here.

every single person like, cares, like, that's I think that's dope.

like when I say geek out, I use that term a lot because it's like when someone is really into something, which is a lot of people in this building, it's just like, awesome to see that.

And like, I wish I hope more people will, like it'll resonate with them when they see that.

I think they do.

When you pick up a copy, when you read our, our posts or taken like a video, I think it is communicated by I want more people to know because, like the video we did with the mystery bag, very clearly.

There he is.

Here he is calling.

We're tying everything together.

It's just planned.

Yes.

I mean, it's it's just wild.

Like being able to watch someone who thoroughly enjoys music.

The both of you.

I mean, we all love music, but I literally have a note where I'm like, I've been adding things when you guys talk because I don't even know.

It all sounds like he's gonna listen to.

It's why I know tricks point never purple mountains or something.

Happy birthday Darren.

Just why it all sounds made up, but it's dope.

And I know that there's people like you guys that are like.

They see what you put out and they connect with it, and it's like, super niche and like, oh, hey, he gets it.

He gets it.

Like, I don't think anyone knew that.

That artist or that song and it's I don't know, I just hope more people like start to see that that city, I love it.

I actually I'm just sitting here like filled with pride for this team.

I like have the warm fuzzies.

I don't need to add anything to this.

I, I will say we are going to post our upcoming themes for the year so that you can pitch us stories or send us tips.

We don't need to keep any of that because you're going to know about it soon anyway.

so please continue to engage with us.

Thank you to everyone who helped produce the show today.

Thanks to Robin.

Julie in the booth to Katie who is making all these cameras work, and the rest of the team, thanks to Evan Dawson and Megan Mac for leaving us to show up at the magazine.

And I'm Leah Stacey.

Thank you for listening to member supported public radio.

Oh.

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