The Mayo Review Open Mic Night Interview

This is my semi-formal interview. I talked a little bit with Brandon, the Editor of The Mayo Review, about the Open Mic Night, and I am also going to use some of my own knowledge as the Assistant Editor to talk about the the event.

We planned the Open Mic Night for Thursday, October 22, 2009. We were planning on having an open mic night sometime in October before we even knew about the Commerce Week on Writing, but we decided to move the event to the actual Week on Writing so we could join in on the festivities. Our Submissions deadline is also coming up, November 2nd, so we figured it would be great opportunity to really get the word out one last time.

We decided to host it at the Cowhill Express since we held our first open mic at The Spot. The Cowhill Express seems to draw in just as large of a crowd as The Spot, and it is just the perfect atmosphere for an open mic night.

I think this open mic got a lot of extra publicity because of the Commerce Week on Writing. I know several teachers, myself included, gave students extra credit for attending the event. We also did our usual advertising by placing flyers up in the Hall of Languages and advertising the event of Facebook.

I did not get to attend the event because I got a sinus infection and was having some problems with my blood pressure, but I did speak with Brandon briefly about the event's success. He said:

"Things went really great. LOTS of new faces and a nice long list of readers/singers. A few people said from the mic how they thought Open Mic was great and that they planned on coming back. One of the guys who read also turned out to be someone from the East Texan who later spoke to me and Toni, so it looks like we'll get a little more publicity."

I think it is great that there were a lot of new faces and that people said they had never been to open mic nights before and planned on coming back. I was also happy to hear that we are going to get a little more publicity in the East Texan. That's what the Commerce Week on Writing is about, right, getting new people to think about, talk about, and enjoy writing. I would say mission accomplished.