Last updated on February 5th, 2024 at 02:17 pm
“Last night was mad real.”
– Kanye West on “No Church in the Wild”, Watch the Throne (2011)
If you’re not a Twitter user in Toronto, you might not know that last night was Twestival Toronto 2011. To sum it up, that’s equal parts:
- Prize giveaways;
- Karaoke contest;
- Intense dance party;
- Networking session; and
- Drunken hook-up-a-thon
The last I heard before I left is that the event raised more than $16,000 for The Remix Project! I kept up 2011’s winning streak with a GelaSkins gift card and a Twestival Toronto t-shirt as one of the first 100 in the house (which I subsequently lost on the dance floor), but eventually, I had to cut my losses and leave. Twestival Toronto 2011 taught me some important lessons:
- I’m not 19 anymore—gallivanting about and dancing like a mad man are going to have effects on my body, no matter how awesome I think I’m doing.
- On that note, I need to stretch before these big tweetup parties. I’m not even kidding.
- I need to follow up with the cool people I meet—it was cool to finally meet Judy and meet a whole set of other people—despite the loud music, I formed connections, which is always important to me—I don’t like just knowing people in a superficial fashion.
- PEOPLE ACTUALLY READ MY BLOG! Which is AWESOME. Which means I won’t stop writing anytime soon 😊 Thanks for the encouragement, guys!
- I owe Justin a shout-out for being the genuinely nice guy that he is.
- Business cards are an awesome way to network when no one can hear each other speak—either due to loud music or having lost your voice from the loud music…
- It’s a small world, so I’d better make sure to behave myself (my wedding photographers were doing the red carpet photos for the event, unexpectedly!)
- People are a lot better at wanting to get to know you once they find out you’re engaged and not trying to get into their pants.
- Though I didn’t win at the TwestivalTO Twidol Karaoke Competition, I know I gave the best rendition of Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It” that I could have while recovering from a cold!
- Preparation is key. Mine involved:
- Eating a solid carbohydrate dinner, since I knew I’d be burning it off.
- Drinking 2L of water, anticipating how many drinks there might be.
- Changing to the most comfortable dress shoes I own; I would not be walking right now if it wasn’t for this
- Those who want to, do. Those who don’t take photos, videos and tweet about it. Thus, I no longer take photos at tweetups since enough people have it covered. One less thing to carry!
- West Indians can party. Period.
All in all, awesome evening, but I’m definitely feeling the effects today! Fun is a good thing, but even then—at this level—it needs to be done in moderation. I think it’s back to writing and sorting life out for a week or two!
If you were at Twestival, I hope you had as good a time as I did! If you didn’t make it, well—this is Twitter. This is Toronto. If there aren’t a whole ton of parties going on throughout the year, something is very wrong.
Until the next one,
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