The stay efficiency writer Pop-Up Journal, whose on-stage storytelling spanned reported narratives, private essays and spoken-word poetry since its launch in 2009, introduced Wednesday that it has shuttered its enterprise. At the least 18 employees have been affected by the closure.
“It’s been a present to do this sort of work, collaborate with our prolonged crew and listen to from hundreds and hundreds of folks that Pop-Up Journal has moved them in some profound method,” co-founder Chas Edwards informed Adweek.
The writer generated income by touring the nation and internet hosting ticketed reveals accompanied by sponsorship messages, along with internet hosting non-public, customized performances for purchasers like Arnold Ventures and Zendesk.
When the pandemic struck, it introduced an existential risk to the Pop-Up Journal enterprise mannequin. The writer responded with a sequence of creative pivots, together with a $70 situation in a field in December 2020 and a sidewalk situation in the summertime of 2021.
The writer returned to on-stage performances in November 2021, and final fall Pop-Up Journal debuted its love tales version, a sequence of performances that prioritized incapacity entry with underwriting from Google.
These efforts, mixed with the return of stay performances, allowed the writer to climate the worst of the pandemic, however in the end did not maintain the corporate because it returned to monetary stability.
“The pandemic was devastating to our enterprise,” the writer stated in an explanatory word. “We labored arduous, and got here up with new issues we may create and new methods to generate income. Dwell audiences have been beginning to return. A worthwhile, self-sustaining future was in sight. However we don’t manage to pay for within the financial institution to make it.”
The writer sought extra funding to bridge the monetary hole created by the pandemic, however these conversations ran aground final fall when the financial downturn accelerated, in response to the word.
Pop-Up Journal operated underneath the umbrella of Pop-Up Productions till October 2020, when the Emerson Collective, the group based by the billionaire investor Laurene Powell Jobs, introduced it was severing ties with the father or mother firm. The information led to the closure of California Sunday, an award-winning writer that was additionally part of Pop-Up Productions.
The shuttering of Pop-Up Journal represents the most recent in a sequence of employees cuts, outlet closures and austerity measures hitting the media trade. Lingering financial uncertainty has led entrepreneurs to pause and cut back promoting spend, which has compelled ad-reliant publishers to trim bills within the face of lowering income.
Pop-Up Journal was a extremely authentic idea, one whose success presaged publishers’ bigger embrace of stay occasions as a significant line of enterprise. Its closure—whether or not technically a casualty of the pandemic or the financial downturn—marks a blow to the inventive capability of the trade.
