Making the Move: Stepping Forward, (Not) Looking Back

October 31, 2014

Continuing our Making the Move blog series on the PuSh Festival’s move to 750 Hamilton Street we invited Managing Director Roxanne Duncan and recent Torontonian transplant, to provide us with a progress update on the new 8,477-square foot cultural arts co-location project. Follow the blog series as we talk to various Vancouver arts community stakeholders in the lead up to our move to downtown Vancouver.

I’ve done a lot of moving lately.

In May I packed up my life in Toronto and moved west to join the (amazing) team at the PuSh Festival. I cycled through five sublets before I succeeded in the blood sport of apartment hunting in Vancouver. So, when I was asked to write about our new office-home, I couldn’t help but reflect on the idea of “home”, moving, and whether all this packing will be worth it.

I know that PuSh’s cozy office has seen a lot of action over the last eight years, and it has served the company well. As the person who has spent the least amount of time in it, I’m in a good position to accurately assess the pros and cons of the situation.

PRO: The office is cozy, and brimful of amazingly talented, hard-working, hard-playing, individuals who are great fun to work with.

CON: Amazingly talented, hard-working, hard-playing, individuals are the loudest phone-talkers in the world, and when they all hop onto calls at the same time “cozy” quickly morphs into something akin to the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

PRO: After nearly eight years in the same small 950-square foot office, we’ve learned how to creatively adapt our existing space for any occasion – from Christmas parties to photo/video shoots.

CON: Once in a while the office is adapted into an impromptu dance studio – but not of the same calibre as most PuSh Festival patrons have come to expect…

PRO: Tight communal spaces mean ingenious and efficient space-saving features.

CON: ”Space-saving features” manifest as bathroom sinks-cum-communal kitchen. Think about that.

(We thought we’d spare you the photo on this point.)

So, focusing on the positive: our new home will feature progressive new amenities, like separate areas for sinks and toilets, eating spaces away from keyboards, and meeting rooms away from the trading floor.

Our new home will also come with roommates! We’ll get to share a chore-wheel and TV schedule with the fine folks at Touchstone Theatre, Music on Main, and DOXA Documentary Film Festival. We’ve already got big plans for workday playlists by Music on Main’s David Pay and movie-night slumber parties with DOXA!

Wish you could get in on the fun? You totally can!

We’ll have two kitted out multi-purpose studios for rent, and a bunch of hot desks and meeting spaces for the administratively inclined. Revel in the wonder that is a clean, well-serviced work space for arts organizations. Also – dishwasher!

At 750 Hamilton, we’re creating open, flexible spaces that will bring people together around ideas, challenges, solutions, art, and lunch tables. We’re providing physical spaces to house the collaborations that so many of us work in every day, and to foster new relationships between both like-minded, and seemingly unrelated people and groups.

Environments that allow people to share ideas, information, and resources are the foundation of community-building. We hope that our new home can also be your new home, and that the relationships you make there will have a lasting impact on you, your practice, your community, and our city.

And did I mention the dishwasher?