Nick TurnerIf you were there, you’d know the size, scale and notoriety of the Zen End of Month Meet. So when you decide to relaunch EOMM, how do you match that?
The answer is: you don’t.
You do it differently. Take the essence of the best parts and distill it down to a more refined, mature and developed experience.
So if EOMM is back, how did it happen?
Wind back to December, Justin and I were spending a day at UNO Studios in Alexandria shooting some extremely rare bikes with Dave from Moto Machine. Throughout the shoot, he expressed his desire to run community events on a monthly basis until the expiration of his lease in June. We needed space to facilitate Zen in the real world. The stars aligned, and in late January we soft launched the Zen Meet at our new home in Marrickville. First event down.
Which brings us to February. The plan was simple. Invite some cars, fire up the bbq, crank some tunes and crack some tins. As a little incentive to get the Zen apparel up and going again, we used the event as a deadline to launch the store with a fresh run of roundel tees and limited-release holographic stickers.
Things started to fall into place. Philter Brewing came on board and generously sponsored a supply of their XPA beer for the event. Absolute legend, Reggie, offered to commandeer the Weber and sling sausages. Neighbouring business, Buddy Creative, opened the shipping crate bar for us and set up speakers and a deck to spread the energy. We put out the facebook event, shared it on socials and started to get the word out.
Come Saturday, a level of anxiety was certainly present. Our meet coincided with Hot Import Nights out west, an event that required cars to bump-in the day before, making them unavailable to attend our event. The weather was turning up, would it be too hot? We had a small selection of cars confirmed to attend – Stu’s AE86, Simons 911 on Works, Reggies MX5 clubman. But would it be enough? Would the payment process on the shop work, and would anyone actually buy anything?
Come midday and the event officially started. Everything changed. An R32 GTR and an FD RX7 rocked up, followed by a well used Lotus Exige, GT3 911s, a Cayman, an aero S15. Silvias, 180s. an S2000, a new Corvette. And of course, people – throughout the day they didn’t stop coming. For the first half of the event I felt like I was constantly on the move, chatting, finding out about their history with Zen and what they want to see from it, as well as sharing my vision for where we can take it. The reception was almost overwhelming, and the word of the day was absolutely ‘Vibe’.
I didn’t get a chance to shoot any stills, there is a short event clip heading to the youtube channel soon so keep an eye out. Fortunately, we did have the homey Curt – CSQPic on Instagram – snapping frames, and of course plenty of cameras in hands shooting the cars on display.
One fast Shiba.
Roundels and 911s.
Keep an eye out for an upcoming feature on this Miata.
Curt, myself and a camera that didn’t get used.
The next zeneration.
Playing Golf.
The elusive Nick Turner.
JDM Heroes.
Wouldn’t be Zen without a GT-R.
Choose your weapon.
Tuned and tunes.
The OG banner lives again.
OG’s will recognise this one.
All attendees welcome.
Graf singlet, maybe the next limited sticker?
SO MANY roundels on backs
Always time for beer
Light and shadow
A huge thanks to the following –
Gina – for manning the shop and making sure people had what they needed
Reggie – for keeping on top of sausage duty
Stella – for keeping the tunes flowing and the energy on point
Curt – for covering the event for content where we couldn’t
Justin – for trusting me with the zen brand
Dave, and the crew at Carrozzeria – for clearing the space and allowing the event to run smoothly
Philter Brewing – for the absolutely delicious XPAs
Buddy Creative – for the bar and speaker kit
Everyone who attended – for giving us that little bit of your weekend to come and see what we’re doing
If you couldn’t make it down, tee’s are available on the soft re-launched zen webstore – https://store.zengarage.com.au
Next EOMM is slated for the evening of March 26th, so save the date…