UAN readers! Please consider helping us: it's the last time, I promise
I'm in a tricky spot, but I'm hoping we can make it work
Hi y’all,
Firstly, huge apologies if this is a duplicate message for you! I keep the Out All Day and Up All Night newsletter lists separate, but I know some people are on both, so I’m sincerely sorry if you’re seeing this twice. I know fundraising emails can be annoying, but this is the last one I’ll send out this year.
So, I have a favor to ask (boooooooo!). BUT: It involves EVERYONE getting a gift (hurrah)! If you think that Up All Night is worth $5 per year (10c per week), then I’ll reward you for it. This is the last time I’ll bug you for this fundraising drive, I promise.
We’ve been running UAN almost every week for four years now, and we’ve organically built up a healthy readership. Sadly, I’m having to relocate to the UK for a time. My dad is very sick and my elderly mum needs help. I’m happy to do this, of course, but I’m sad to be away from New Orleans, where a lot of my close friends are, and where my community is.
I run two online publications: Out All Day: New Orleans and Up All Night: New Orleans. They exist mainly to uplift show producers and performers, independent artists, hospitality workers, and creators in our city. This kind of coverage is disappearing in local media, and I really want to do as much as I can to promote the cool stuff that people in New Orleans are doing, from burlesque shows to kitchen pop-ups, to plays and art exhibitions, to dance parties and cabarets.
I’ll be in the UK, but I want to pay a collection of writers over the course of the next year, so that these weekly magazines can continue. I want them to get out and review the city’s nightlife, and interview our city’s talent in a way that isn’t being done in many other local media outlets. It will also really help me to feel connected to home while I’m going through a crappy situation. I’m interested in all voices and all experiences, and of course I want to pay them (or maybe YOU!) for their (or maybe YOUR!) time and talents.
I figure that I can run both Out All Day and Up All Night for one year with a freelance budget of around $5,000. I’m asking for $5 to help me do this. If I can raise $3,000, I’ll top it up to $5,000 with my own money. All of it will be spent paying local writers, I don’t take a salary. I’m currently at around $2,000, which is amazing (and thank you if you have already donated)!
$5 will get you a gift no matter what (I have lots of original art by local artists, books, travel amenity kits, general swag, lots of options, all easily worth at least $5). Here are some options:
You can simply donate $5, or any amount you like to @shandypockets on Venmo (https://venmo.com/shandypockets), or paul.oswell@gmail.com on PayPal - I’ll deliver a gift to your door to say thanks or if you have a business or website, I can offer some free promotion or advertising (the combined readership is around 6,000 people weekly) based on your donation; we’ll work something out.
Buy a ticket for the upcoming show Godless: A Cabaret, at 11pm on Sat Aug 10th and I will also give you five (5) free raffle tickets per show ticket bought for the draw on August 1st. You can buy tickets here, and I’ll email you to set up your raffle tickets. It’s going to be a great night, with Trombone Squirty, Laveau Contraire, Simone del Mar, Xena Zeit-Geist, Pinky de Ville, Lauren Malara, Laura Sanders and Jeff de Rouen performing.
Thank you for reading this far, and thank you so much for your consideration. Thanks for reading UAN and supporting us. I can’t wait to come home, and in the meantime, I hope I can continue to be a small part of things here from a few time zones away.
Sincerely, much love to you all.
Paul O