About
The story unfolds….Five friends: Tara Hunt, Tony Bacigalupo, Alex Hillman, Emma Persky, Karen Hartline plus their furry friend Ridley load up a moving truck and RV with Tara’s worldly possessions and a karaoke machine — complete with costumes and stage — and venture across America, starting in San Francisco and ending in Montreal.
The idea was conceived of at SXSW Interactive this year while spending too many hours in the R{VIP} , the karaoke RV that travels from venue to venue in Austin during the interactive and music festivals. Tara turned to Tony and Alex at one point and mused, “My dream is to quit my job and karaoke across America, bringing peace, love and brotherhood with me along the way.” Both Tony and Alex thought that was the BEST idea ever and vowed that, if Tara ever did this, they would join her.
Well, not two months later and shortly after the successful release of Tara’s book The Whuffie Factor, Tara desperately wanted a way to have the time and space to write her next book and continue to travel around. Taking a look at her current situation, she knew that, in order to do that, she would need to quit her job and move back to Canada (where she is a citizen). She picked Montreal, because it’s awesome and beautiful and incredibly affordable to be a writer in. Within minutes, it dawned on her that this was the PERFECT opportunity to pursue her dream of karaoke-ing across America. Why just move when you can move AND bring karaoke happiness in the process?
As soon as she told Tony and Alex, they were in…and shortly after this, she let Emma in on the deal and she was in, too! Karen was the last member to join the cast only a few short weeks before kick off.
The plan is to stop at each of the 13 cities and have a meetup with karaoke, book signings, awesome conversations and a great deal of fun. We are working on getting every second of the trip livestreamed (from the cab and the karaoke stage) and totally interactive on the web as well as at our stops. We’ll be tweeting, blogging, uploading photos and getting all sorts of press along the way.
