Watch: Choir Bar debuts ‘One Day’ video from its first reverse karaoke singalong event
June 20, 2018 | Tommy Felts
The excitement was palpable Saturday as Choir Bar launched into song for the first time in River Market, said Matt Baysinger. Now organizers are ready to share the singalong experience with the world.
“People are so dang impressive,” said Baysinger, co-founder of Swell Spark, which debuted the Choir Bar concept in hopes of it becoming a semi-regular event series. “We thought it would be fun to get a bunch of people together and learn how to sing a song as a three-part harmony. … [It was] absolutely one of the coolest things I have ever been involved with.”
About 90 people — family, friends and strangers — gathered Saturday at the River Market Event Place for a professionally choreographed, “reverse-karaoke”-style singalong. The crowd learned and then sang “One Day” by Matisyahu, an alternative artist who fuses reggae, rap and rock.
The result?
With the crowd of singers led by vocalist Jazz Rucker and musician Jared Scholz, Saturday’s event spurred enough interest to warrant another Choir Bar singalong — likely coming in July, though organizers still are working out venue details, Baysinger said.
Watch for news about coming event dates here.
Choir Bar is the latest concept from Swell Spark, a Kansas City-based innovator of interactive, experience-based entertainment. It’s suite of offerings includes popular brands Blade & Timber and Breakout KC.
Swell Spark was named one of Startland’s Top Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2018, in part because of the rapid growth of its Blade & Timber axe-throwing concept, as well as the ongoing development of new business verticals.
The company opened a second Kansas City-area Blade & Timber location in May with 12 lanes at Leawood’s Town Center Plaza. Another location in Wichita is expected to open in July, with Blade & Timber soon expanding to the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, as well as to sites in Portland, Seattle, Springfield and St. Louis, Missouri, Oakland, Honolulu, and Miami.
Featured Business
2018 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Former school principal’s SafeDefend active shooter system installed at Jewish Community Center, target of 2014 Overland Park shootings
Every student, teacher and staff member deserves the greatest opportunity to get home from school safely, said Jeff Green, founder of SafeDefend. Green’s security solution — an active shooter response system that sends alerts throughout a school community, as well as detailed information to law enforcement, within seconds of an incident — recently was installed…
H&R Block must reconnect with startup energy, innovation, CEO Jeff Jones says
Jeff Jones’ journey to Kansas City — winding through hangouts with popstar Justin Timberlake, dinner with Oprah, and a stint driving one of the world’s most dominant sharing economy companies — has been transformative, the H&R Block CEO said. And if the homegrown corporate juggernaut he now leads is to meet its stretch potential, the…
From Cake to Google: Musician-turned-tech leader composes career between keyboards
Well into a music career — but noticing friends who were still trying to find gigs to make ends meet — Ben Morss faced a life-altering pivot. “I got sick of it and I turned to programming full time,” said Morss, a developer advocate at Google. “As a musician, I was trying to call people…
Idle Smart posts Series A round with KCRise Fund, multimillion-dollar investment support
A multi-million dollar investment round has Kansas City-grown Idle Smart revving its engine and accelerating toward rapid growth in 2019, revealed Jeff Lynch, company president. “I think it’s a reflection of what the team has been able to create over the past few years,” Lynch said of Idle Smart’s completion of a milestone Series A…