"All I wanted was a car, and a girl and to get out of Queensborough," New Westminster-born urban planning expert Gary Pooni told a sold-out crowd at the Pecha Kucha Night held last February at the River Market.
When Pooni talked about growing up in the sometimes forgotten neighbourhood on the other side of the Fraser, I fell for the Pecha Kucha concept.
And the concept is this: 10 to 12 presenters who live, work or play in the city show 20 slides for 20 seconds each (six minutes and 40 seconds in total). The format provides a way of learning something about the presenters and their passion, usually with a few laughs, or maybe even tears, without being bogged down by details.
Pecha Kucha started in Tokyo in 2003 and has mushroomed to cities across the world, including New Westminster.
Married couple Melinda and Neal Michael, both 34, started the Pecha Kucha Night here a year-and-a-half ago with support from eager locals and businesses, including the River Market, which has championed the event from the gate. From the beginning, it was a hit.
They plan to host the biggest local Pecha Kucha Night yet at the riverfront Westminster Pier Park on July 19. The Michaels reached out to Vancouver Urban Spaces initiative (VUSI), an organization that has held electronic music picnics at various parks in Vancouver. The Pier Park Pecha Kucha will include food, DJs and a beer garden, Neal said. Last summer's event at the park drew 300 people, and they expect the same or more this year.
Q: Why did you start Pecha Kucha?
Melinda: It started because we would go to the ones in Vancouver. They're huge, and they're really successful. They're at the Vogue, and it sells out every time, and you'd attend and you'd just feel so inspired and then at the same time, you'd kind of look at yourself and say, 'Well, what are we doing?"
We've always liked organizing and hosting events amongst our friends, and we thought "Well, might as well just try it, and see what happens." It wasn't happening in New West, and we kind of thought there was an audience for it. We thought it might take off in New West, and it did.
Q: How was the first one?
Neal: The first one was great. ... We had 100 people, now we do 150.
Q: Has it sold out every time since the start?
In unison: Yes.
Neal: It's just a great night. It attracts a type of person who wants an entertaining event, but something also cultural, and something that offers them a chance to meet other people as well. So it's not just passive - like watching a show or something like that.
Q: How do you know if (the speakers) are going to be good?
Melinda: Oftentimes we go off recommendations off of other people, off of other speakers. Quite honestly, we'll just open up the newspaper and see what people are doing in New West, and you kind of go from there, you get a feel for that.
For each Pecha Kucha we try to have a diverse group of people. We kind of have different categories of like small business, or environmental or ...
Neal: ... architecture and design or food.
We try to hit different key areas, but we don't necessarily know if they are going to be a good speaker. We just try to choose people who are going to be passionate about whatever it is that they're doing, and, generally speaking, that comes through.
Q: What do you guys like about the Pecha Kucha concept?
Melinda: Well, I like that it's exact. It's six minutes and 40 seconds (for) each person. So, because it is a very curated presentation, the presenters really need to think hard about what they want to say in that limited amount of time, and I find because of that, often times they are quite well prepared. So, they have to think very hard about what is it that they are passionate about. What story do they want to convey in their time? The result is a really great presentation most of the time.
Neal: The format really challenges them to distill their idea down to its real core, in a sense. It's like when you have to write an essay in university. Sometimes the higher the number of pages, the more B.S. you put in it, versus trying to only write a two-page paper (where) everything you said had to be good. I think that's the same thing with Pecha Kucha - that you have 20 slides, and that it goes real quick, or it goes really long, if you're not prepared.
Q: Is there a set number of presenters that you pick?
Melinda: We do 10. Pecha Kucha format is 10 to 12 speakers.
(Faces of Pecha Kucha past: Clockwise from top left, Mary Wilson, Gary Pooni, Jorden Foss, Robert Fung, Cait Flanders and Tej Kainth)
Q: Has a community grown around it?
Melinda: I think so. The last one, it was great because it was such a New West love fest. We could totally feel the love.
Q: It was interesting looking at the list (of presenters), certain people I was intrigued by and other people I thought 'Well, I don't really know if I'll connect with what they have to say,' and those people turned out to be the ones that I was blown away by. Is that something you guys find happens?
In unison: Yes.
Melinda: Sometimes people surprise you. It's interesting because we kind of pick people based on what we know of them, which isn't always the full story, and sometimes they present on something completely (different) - whatever it is they're passionate about, and we don't necessarily know what that passion is, and sometimes it's just great to hear whatever it is that they wanted to talk about.
Q: Have you ever presented?
Melinda: No
Q: Has Neal done it?
Neal: I don't actually know what I would say.
Q: You don't know what you would say? What are you passionate about?
Neal: I'm not trying to be coy. I know what interests me, and I know what we like to do, but I really don't know ... what it is that I would that I want to impart to people that would be sort of be my ...
Melinda: ... your story.
Neal: Yes, my story or great inspiration or what.
Q: Interesting. What do you think he could do as his topic if he were to do it?
Melinda: He would either talk about maybe what makes a good city or something like that or potentially his love affair with the French language or something.
Neal: The other, that every now and then crosses my mind, is like being a French teacher and living on the west coast and what not. It's not at all (where I thought I'd see myself) ... it's just that serendipity - going with whatever seems right. (It was) crazy to move out here, but then thinking maybe I should.
We lived in France for a year, so that was another sort of thing that was a big event. Maybe that would be like that chance sort of aspect, and not knowing where you are going to go but following that.
Q: What about Melinda? What would Melinda's topic be? Do you know Melinda?
Melinda: I think I would do something along the lines of ordinary people can do extraordinary things, because I mean like really we're a teacher and we're an accountant. On paper, we're pretty boring, right? We went to an art event once at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and it was like a networking thing, and people would talk to us, and it was "Oh, so what do you do?' I'm an accountant and we build run-of the river hydro projects, and he, at the time, was an elementary school teacher ... the glazed look goes over, and it's like OK, well that's it. But anyone can do anything that they want, right. You don't have to be limited by what you think you can do. Just aim high and do it.
Q: Has there been any duds? Has there been any Pecha Kucha talks where you've thought, "let this six minutes go fast?"
Neal: There have been some where it totally surprised us what the person talked about in a way where they were actually doing some really interesting things but then when they spoke that didn't come through, so yes, that was definitely a surprise. On the whole, most of the talks have been excellent, if not very, very good.
