Buzzcation is Back!

Long ago and far away – okay, it was 2009 – Buzzcation was born.
Due in part to the recession and in part to Twitter becoming “a thing” amongst the communications community, three of our industry buds got together and created these networking TweetUps, which were essentially semi-regular happy hours.
Lars Jacoby, one of the three founders actually coined the term, albeit more in response to being asked if he was going on vacation that summer. Yvette Roeder (a then-client, in fact!) loved the term, and the rest is history.
After the first year, the events actually took on a life of their own. By 2010, they were seeing more than 130 in average attendance – and even by people not directly linked to the industry. Mainstream media including the Phoenix Business Journal and ABC 15 even started covering the events at one point. Buzzcation events, although free to attend, also started linking to local nonprofits to help raise critical funds for the community through raffles and donations made during the events.
Like all good things, however, Buzzcations came to an end in 2013.
Until now.
Mike Saucier, a local journalist who many know from his recent work as editor of frontdoors Magazine, lost his battle last year to pancreatic cancer. He and his fellow journalist wife Fernanda (with whom our team has also had the pleasure of working with) used the Buzzcations back in the day to forge new relationships when they moved to the Valley. I actually met Mike for the first time at a Buzzcation.
So, five years after the last Buzzcation, the three founders of the event are bringing it back in honor of Mike. The event will take place August 2 at the Found:RE Hotel starting at 5:30 p.m.
This time around, tickets to the event (available here) cost $20 and will go toward a Mike Saucier Memorial Scholarship at the Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
We’re in. How about you?