Weekly Seeds | February 09, 2025 | Partying

Partying
 

⚠️ Tech stuff #1. If you had issues buying tickets on Plura in the past 48 hours, download the newest app version and you should be good.  

⚠️ Tech stuff #2. We know some members are experiencing issues related to our bud notes system. We hope to have it fixed ASAP. 

 

Partying? Now?

I wrote this email 33,000 feet in the air on the way to Love Burn (Florida’s regional Burning Man event). I’m taking my 10-year-old kid to her first burn-ish event, and I am SO STOKED! I'm excited to spend quality time with her and I'm excited show her a version of reality where people connect around art, gifting, and self-expression. 

I also feel conflicted about investing a ton of time and money (and carbon footprint) into partying during a cultural, national, and environmental crisis.

Partying! Now!

This quote from Dan Savage help me make sense of partying, and helps me appreciate the role of partying in community connection, self-expression, resistance, and resilience. 

In perfect timing, the Atlantic made the case that partying is the cure for loneliness. I couldn't agree more. We see this every day at Plura; 100% of the time, the easiest and most reliable way to connect with people is by leaving the house or opening your home and meeting people. Or flying across the country. So- If you're at Love Burn, we'll be hanging at Secret Ingredient camp. Come say hi. 

 
quote Dan Savage: during the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for. It didn't look like we were going to win then and we did. it doesn't  feel like we're going to win now but we could. keep fighting, keep dancing.
 

Partying! Where?

In 2025, it feels harder than ever to find the events we want to go to. Maybe it's that there are so many platform to track. Maybe it's because our social feeds are mostly filled with content from not-friends. Maybe it's because many of our event organizers are getting banned and shadow-banned from social media. The result is that we are less informed about what's happening in our social circles, and the social circles are having a hard time reaching us with the information.

Ask any festival or event producer, educator, or community organizer how it’s going, and you’ll discover how difficult it has become to run their business. Many of these people spend more time learning the latest algorithm pitfalls and reposting their content on ten different platforms than they invest in creating the event itself. 

 

While you were partying

In the past four months, we’ve worked around the clock to build a ticketing platform on Plura. After witnessing the pain our communities experience trying to run their businesses on sex-negative systems, we decided that organizations that invest so much in creating safety and building trust deserve the same level of care from their software partners.

We had a big go-live moment last weekend at Bawdy Storytelling. If you attended the sold-out event, our Head of Engineering, Jeremy, might have scanned your QR ticket at the door. We’re delighted to see the adoption of our ticketing system and deeply appreciate the vote of confidence. I’m excited to continue serving this incredible community.

 
Plura ticketing UI
 

Big tech enters the party

Apple just released its newest iPhone app, Invites, which lets people [insert the full feature list that partiful currently offers]. Partiful is not going down without calling Apple on their Sherlocking behavior 🌶️ 👏.  I love Partiful as a product and a brand and am rooting for them to continue thriving. I'm also very nervous that this story will end up in the same sad place that Tile and Bitmoji's stories ended.

The question for all of us is: who will we give your business, data, and trust to? A small independent startup or the largest company in the world?

 
 
screenshot from partiful's X post that showcases a snippet from apple's term
 

One last thing about partying… You know who’s apparently not into it? Miami

 

See you in 2 weeks.

 

Noa

 
 

 

Note: This newsletter represents my (Noa's) personal opinions and thoughts. I understand I may have unexamined views and I appreciate when people point them out so that I am made aware and can start thinking about them. When I make mistakes I am committed to learning about my impact on others and repairing. 

Contact me anytime: noa@heyplura.com

 

 

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