KC women create LGBTQ dating events where friends pitch friends ‘Shark Tank’ style
Tiffany Watts, co-founder of Where To Find Us set out to create an experience she and her business partner felt was missing from the queer dating scene in Kansas City.
With a background in marketing and one as a food and restaurant writer, Watts wanted to make a space outside of the impersonal dating apps or meeting people at a bar.
What the team created was a new experience where members of the LGBTQIA community enlist their friends to give a short pitch, “Shark Tank” style, on why their friend is a great date. The organization had its first event last month, and Watts is excited about the feedback she has received from participants. She hopes to continue building on this space established for making connections.
Recently, Watts sat down with The Kansas City Star’s culture and identity reporter, J.M. Banks, to talk about the the KC queer dating scene, lack of venues for LGTBTQIA dating and using friendships to create relationships.
Banks: Can you begin by telling me about your early life and upbringing?
Watts: I grew up in Liberty and I competed in pageants throughout my childhood. So I have always had a love for performance and the stage. In my adulthood, I went to college for marketing and spend most of my time now as a food writer for The Pitch.
I spent lots of time in the food industry, but the other half of that I spend creating events for the queer community. I helped host Queer Bar Takeover, where we go to a traditionally very straight bar and turn it into a queer bar for a night. I also help host Queer Dinner Club, which is just bringing the queer community together in a more intimate way to help spark new connections and friendships and get those people who really aren’t big on the party scene a way to still connect with their community and engage with people.
How were you and your co-founder inspired to come up with the concept for Where To Find Us?
So, my friend and co-founder, Lo Cowan, and I are both in the marketing space. So she does events here all around Kansas City. and then obviously, I’m in the food space, and run a page called Hooked on KC, where I talk about a lot of the food and then just new restaurants, new spaces that are opening up, things like that. So we thought together it would be really fun to create something for the queer community that we really don’t have.
As we started really kind of putting ideas together, we seen this video. There was a video that came across my feed of an event like the event that we created. It was like on a smaller scale, but very cute. I was like this is something that I think would be fun for the queer community, especially being that within that queer community we have so many amazing parties already. So there’s no need to create another party.
We also have a growing sober community and so we wanted to do something that can hold space for singles that’s not just centered around partying and drinking. We thought, why not take this event and really make it into something. And so that’s how we started. The name, Where To Find Us, plays on the idea of queer people kind of having to be in very typical spaces, like your typical bar and not always knowing who your people are.
Can you give me an overview of the event and what singles attending can expect?
Once we get everybody checked in it really starts off with a mix and mingle. People are having drinks, connecting with people that they know and finding their seats. Then we start the event by getting the audience excited and introducing the event by recapping how the event will flow.
Lo hosts throughout the night and she calls up the pitches. We have them come up and just start sharing their pitches and the pitches really consist of this person telling a story or jokes about their friend or a PowerPoint presentation. Think like “Shark Tank” but for like, single people.
In the midst of all that we have performances by local queer artists. So our most recent one, we had Lana Luxx (Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift impersonator). She came and performed and she’s obviously big in the queer community, but all of Kansas City loves her. Then we get back to the pitches. Once all the pitches are over, people really like connecting with either someone they have seen up there that they liked, or they’re connecting with other people who have on a green wristband.
At the beginning of the event, everybody gets a wristband. So sort of similar to a traffic light party, you have red, green and yellow. You have red for people who are unavailable and they may be there to connect or support friends. Then you have yellow, that may be polyamorous, or something along those lines, or they may just be kind of considering dating. Then we have green, obviously for single and available people. Then we have our pink bracelets for all of our allies who come just as friends to support and have fun and connect.
How did you get the idea to implement friends into the matchmaking process?
Well, I think it’s your friends who see the best parts of you, even when you don’t see it. They naturally are your hype people. So you know your friend will introduce you and say all these great things about you. It just made sense for people to not have to get up there and feel weird about talking about themselves, because their best friend is going to and it’s easier for their best friend to do it.
It’s fun for their best friend to do it and also it’s funny because they have all these really amazing stories. What I love about it is that we don’t naturally, as a society, do a lot for single people and so this is a beautiful chance for us to hold space for our singles. But also just to celebrate them. Obviously our best friends do that great.
What are some of the key differences in your events that may attract people over a dating app?
I would say one of the biggest things is, number one, you have someone else talking about you and really just putting a spotlight on you instead of you having to do it yourself. You get this kind of confirmation that this person is really cool, outside of what they would say. I think, on the other hand, with dating apps, there’s a lot of back and forth in the texting and you can really get caught up in having these text conversations, or text, or phone calls and not really meet each other in person. This is the opportunity for people to make matches in real life without jumping through the hoops of a dating app. Outside of that it’s so much easier to not have to sift through the dating apps and figure out if there’s even people on there that you like.
Can you tell me about the first event that happened earlier this month?
It was beautiful. People were really excited and every time someone was going up to pitch they were really cheering them on. You can tell people were really excited for this event and they were very invested. They loved hearing the stories, the laughter, the joy. It was beautiful.
This was essentially like our pilot event. We wanted to see how the community would respond to the event we were sharing about and we were hearing that a lot of people were excited. We sold over 150 tickets. We had a really, really good turnout, way better than we expected. The event went amazing and we had such good feedback and so many good ideas on how to make it better and so we’ll be kicking off our official season in January.
How often do you plan on having these events?
Essentially, we want to have six events for next year. But in between that we do plan to have some mixers and chances for people to still connect outside of the pitch events.
Were there any particular challenges that you faced getting this event together?
I think one of the challenges that we kind of expected to face, that we were able to overcome, was that some of the people who are getting pitched start getting nervous. They didn’t realize that they didn’t have to be at the front with the person who was pitching them. So they were just really shy. Some people are introverts who are more conservative and more reserved and so they were getting nervous. Some people started to back out. So we were able to explain to them how it actually worked, that it’s just the person up front pitching and people started to feel way more at ease.
How do you feel your work impacts the community around you?
I think our work with Where To Find Us is giving people an opportunity to get out of the house and have a really good time without partying and drinking. I think aside from that it’s giving our singles a space where they really feel supported and celebrated and that’s not something that we have a lot of whether you’re in the queer community or not. There’s just not a lot of events that really hold space for singles. So people are really looking forward to more of this and I think it’s just because it’s like a breath of fresh air. It’s something different and exciting.
What do you think is the most fulfilling aspect of your work?
Just putting on the event was amazing. Seeing people really connect right in front of your eyes is such a beautiful thing. What really got me excited is hearing the feedback from the event. They feel good about being in the space. They feel safe enough to connect with other people and then they’re actually going out here and they’re meeting people and making matches. That has probably been the most exciting part so far.
What are your goals for the future?
We plan on taking Where To Find Us to other places like St. Louis, Chicago, Denver, wherever the wind may takes us.
What advice would you give to someone who was inspired by your work and wanting to follow a similar career path?
If you have a really dope idea you want to introduce it to the community, do it. When you really want something you figure out how to make it happen. So I say go out and make it happen.
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This story was originally published December 2, 2024 at 2:08 PM.
