Sophie Szydlik and I walked into Yee-Haw Brewing Co. on Sept. 17 hoping to catch at least a few people watching “The Summer I Turned Pretty” finale on the brewery’s jumbotron.
We thought maybe a few people would show up to the event in North Knoxville, and it could make for a pretty funny video. Little did we know the relentless hold the Amazon Prime show has on people – and by the end of the night, on us, too.
Neither Sophie nor I had ever watched the show, but suddenly our Instagram and TikTok feeds were overpowered with “Team Jeremiah” or “Team Conrad” posts. We had to figure out what the hype was about, and a new trend creeping up at bars and breweries all over town gave us the perfect opportunity. It’s not just about trivia night with friends or catching a University of Tennessee game with fellow Vols fans at bars and breweries in Knoxville.
Those places are hosting watch parties for your favorite shows like “The Bachelor” and “Love Island,” and presenting slideshows of people pitching their single friends to a crowd on the same screens that show Vols football games.
This specific watch party at Yee-Haw was a little different. It was a one-time event, featuring an hour-long series finale that had been five years in the making. And Knoxville was ready.
We walked onto the brewery patio, which is a sea of orange on gamedays. On this night was packed with people of all ages, from groups of girlfriends on a night out, to husbands and wives with their children to regulars who had no idea the event was happening before they showed up.
This would be an easy assignment, right? We would walk in, talk to a few people about their intense opinions and leave before the drama began.
We were wrong.
It was difficult just to find a place to stand, let alone find people willing to peel their eyes off the screen long enough to talk to reporters. But that was OK, because as we got further into the episode, Sophie and I forgot about the assignment and were invested in the outcome of characters we’d known nothing about an hour earlier.
And (spoiler alert!) as Belly reunited with Conrad on the train, Taylor Swift’s “Out of the Woods” blared through the brewery’s speakers and the crowd cheered as if Max Gilbert made that field goal for a win against Georgia, we understood why Yee-Haw hosted the event.
Going to events like this show’s watchparty, whether you’re a fan or not, draws audiences in and provides a sense of community, filling a brewery to the brim with people who normally might not go there. Yee-Haw reached a brand new audience, including Sophie and me.
And that’s exactly what we are hoping to do with videos like the one at the top of this story.
We’re hoping to reach Knoxville where they are at, with the content they are craving, even if it is about a TV show we have never seen.
Knox News reporter Joanna Hayes covers restaurants and retail for the business growth and development team. Email: [email protected]; Instagram: @knoxeat65. Sign up for Joanna’s Eat65 email newsletter to get the latest drink and dining news, as well as restaurant recommendations, at knoxnews.com/newsletters.
Support strong local journalism by subscribing at subscribe.knoxnews.com.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knoxville bar’s ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ watch party explains hype
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
