Neko Nation - Happy Birthday

Neko Nation -Dancefloor - First event of 2011 (and ever!)
4 DJ's // 2 Catgirls // 2 Media (photo and video)

 Neko Nation - Dancefloor - Final Event of 2011
14 DJ's // 8 Catgirls // 10 Media

It's amazing what can happen within a year.

We've come a long way, as a matter a fact the fact we've even gone anywhere is pretty amazing since "Neko Nation" was a side project to try putting on event in my uni holidays.  To see what has happened with Neko Nation within a year is absolutely mindblowing.  The original concept has blown into something beyond my absolute wildest dreams, found me the love of my life and seen me go around the country doing something I love.

It hasn't all been smooth sailing, putting on events is not easy and quite tricky at times and it has not been easy to get to where we are but we literally couldn't have done it ourselves and we've had so much help and support along the way thanks to some amazing staff members, some brilliant sponsors and a lot of fans for thanking us for what we've been doing.  I honestly value all positive contributions greatly as it is a pretty hard job at times with work starting up to 3 months before an event takes place with lots of love and labour put in by many people to make these nights happen.  ^^

I've been lucky to meet many awesome people along the way, in particular I've met some pretty amazing friends along the way who I get along with well outside of Neko Nation.  I've also met some people who I've seen as pretty high up in terms of musicians and models and it's really quite something to actually be respected  by people that I've looked up too.  Neko Nation has given me so many wonderful opportunities to do many things that would not have happened without this business.

I've been enjoying getting more and more involved in the event production industry, while I'm in my "rookie" year, I've had years of experience being heavily involved in raves, alt nights, bar work, bar management, marketing, accounting, small business owner and working one step below as PA for an event promoter.  It was finally awesome to take the plunge myself and to be honest going to events was interesting, since I really took a different eye to events as someone who knows how it all works behind the scenes.  I got more critical of things but at the same time also took in smaller details which I used to improve my event.  One of the most satisfying things for me was to pull of the third Adelaide event in terms of trying to heavily revolutionise Neko Nation into a show that many people in Adelaide have bragged to friends both in their state and interstate.  The end result somehow ended up at Madman and they were pretty impressed, which really made our year.  Honestly, I've learnt that this is what I need to be doing for as long as I can.

Without a doubt my best highlight for the year was easily meeting Saccharine.  I found it a bit bizarre that someone loved the concept behind Neko Nation that they would meet someone they barely knew to help out at our first and head catgirl for our new event.  One thing lead to another and she helped made an a good debut show and decided to bring the show to Adelaide I had a feeling things could really go somewhere with this.  Things did, both business-wise as we joined forces to put events on together, eventually leading to Tokyo Hardcore but also for our personal relation together to be an amazing one as she really is my dream partner come to life.

The next year of Neko Nation will be an interesting one, I've got so much planned which I'm looking forward too, I'm a big believer of if you're standing still you're going backwards.  The main event will constantly be improved with lots of little tweaks and new additions throughout the year, there's going to be some more bigger events and associations with bigger names throughout the year which I'm very excited about.  I've already started talking to a Japanese act who are thinking about playing at Neko Nation shows.  We'll also be looking at launching new side shows as well too outside Neko Nation too.  There will be more merch and more involvement with anime and cosplay communities, there's very busy but exciting times ahead!