What do students, office workers and pretty much everyone who has to work for a living have in common? An extensive list of complaints about the first day of the week, occasionally accompanied by a discordant tune of exasperated sighs.
Peter Lazar and his coworkers felt the same way during their lunch time breaks at Tusq Events headquarters, a Hamilton-based event design and management company. Their solution to overcoming the Monday blues was to throw a little dance party right in their warehouse.
Some laser lights, cocktails and a DJ in a Stormtrooper costume later, their idea grew to a lunch time series of events exclusively held on Mondays. They introduced their mid-day partying for the first time at the Mule Spinner, a music and entertainment space at The Cotton Factory.
The first show, Drop the Hammer, was in honour of bringing the “ham” back to Hamilton with inflatable hammers and themed music dedicated to the city. The following dance party had attendees jamming out to Disney while last Monday’s show had DJ’s spinning from a boat.
The themes are the products of workshopping spontaneous ideas. Lazar and his team first figure out what would be fun, then how to make it happen, no matter how outlandish the idea may be.
“The funny thing for us with Electric Lunch is because we’re in it for having a good time, we’re able to be quite relaxed in terms of what we want to do for an idea,” explained Lazar.
“This week we’re having a really small, kind of dinky, one man’s sailboat… the only reason why we thought of it was because we [thought] how much fun would it be to DJ from a boat, except the lake is frozen, so let’s just bring the boat and do it for no apparent reason.”
Attendees also got to enjoy lunchtime eats and live cooking courtesy of Best on Bread as Chef Grant Whittaker made his signature porchetta sandwiches and crostini creations. Redchurch Cafe supplied the coffee, in case attendees needed an extra shot of energy to survive the day after the party was over.
For Lazar and his creative agency, it’s important to incorporate small businesses, chefs and caterers into their events. Collaborating with others in the community is a lot more fun than running events on their own.
“We find that there is a lot of passion. [For example], Grant is energetic, passionate about his food, Best on Bread is new and exciting, and so bringing that energy into an event, like Electric Lunch, or any event that we do, it just adds a whole lot more to the experience,” explained Lazar.
“Everyone who is working the event is excited to be there, so it makes for a much more enjoyable experience.”
The company also uses a portion of their profits to fund small grassroots organizations, including supporting a community centre in Mozambique.
Electric Lunch wrapped up their first series of events this week and are making big plans for their next set of lunch-time parties, which will start on March 5th. They hope to continue collaborating and make Electric Lunch more accessible by bringing their events closer to the downtown core.
We might even see a Stormtropper DJ spinning from a boat on campus as Electric Lunch continues to bring in their high energy jams to new spaces. Mondays are now for letting loose and being a little ridiculous.
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