Music

Calgary music fest 50 Days YYC responds to critics and gets parodied

by Mark Teo

Last week, we wrote about 50 Days YYC, a forthcoming Cowtown festival — ahem, “live music experience for a young, social demographic” — run by University of Calgary business-school grads.

Their Kickstarter video was mind-bustingly tone-deaf, suggesting that 50 Days YYC was for people who thought Calgary had nothing to offer them. It insulted the city’s local music scene, suggesting that the average dummy didn’t know about Calgary music (or the city’s “local music artists,” in the immortal words of creative lead Ben Gough). Then, as an exclamation point: the backflip heard ’round the world.

At first, the video was met with outrage, which eventually spilled over to Facebook and Twitter. Being a socially savvy outfit who, we assume, uses advanced social listening tools to measure engagement and sentiment to drive conversions — bro do you even Sysomos? — 50 Days YYC decided to pull their teaser vid. 

First, they posted a photo on Facebook declaring that “Calgary, we’re listening to you.”

This was accompanied with the verbiage of a consumer-packaged-goods publicist fielding complaints on a corporate Facebook page. 50 Days YYC: Put this shit in your portfolio.

It’s come to our attention that some of the messaging in our full length kickstarter video was poorly communicated and not a clear representation of our project, or team. From some of us being artists, event planners and promoters, to others having yet to be fully immersed in the depths of the Calgary music scene – We had hoped to reflect these differences in peoples [sic] music experiences in Calgary. That said we understand that it’s a growing process, and moving forward we’ll be making sure that our content represents the diversity of walks of life that we hope to engage.

Then, they left their Kickstarter page with a milder video of 50 Days honcho Ruben Young. The tone-deafness is still present — “if you’re one of those people who says, ‘we’re at the same bar every Friday and Saturday and we’re sick of it,'” he says, “or if you’re an artist that says our music scene doesn’t have enough for you,” then giddy up — but it’s far more muted. Thanks to their new, uh, content, 50 Days YYC almost seems mild: It’s just a bunch of kids with great haircuts trying to launch an impossibly long music festival.

All of this makes us miss 50 Days YYC’s original — and dare we say adorable — video. Where are the nipple rings? The circa-1997 nü metal tattoos? The thinly veiled insults at Calgary’s music scene? Or the bland marketing buzzwords? (OK, those are still present.) If you’re hankering for a slice of the original 50 Days YYC video, its essence lives on in this wonderful, wonderful parody by Jenny Kost, Hannah Kost, and Isabelle Jackson, aptly titled 50 Shades YYC.

You may be gone, 50 Days YYC Kickstarter video, but you’ll never be forgotten. Also: Viva Slut Island!