Attendees reacting after a presentation on Rich D’Antonio (in brown sweater) at an event at Meyers Brewing in Philadelphia, the United States. Photos: TNS
On a Friday night in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighbourhood, a crowd of people crammed into Meyers Brewing to hear Alyssa Klauder pitch her friend Rich D’Antonio to a room full of eager singles looking for dates off the apps.
“Are you looking for someone with an executive family Costco membership?” Klauder asked the boisterous group of about 60 people. Cheers erupted at the photo of D’Antonio’s membership card projected on the screen above her.
“Let’s get serious for a moment,” she said, flipping to the next slide in her PowerPoint presentation. “It is an election year. Are you looking for someone who supports women’s rights?” The crowd clapped and hollered. “And guess what, he’s gonna take you to the polls – he votes!”
Klauder was one of seven presenters to sign up for Pitch-A-Friend Philly’s first event of 2024. Created by Melissa Schipke and Ariana Brogan, Pitch-A-Friend Philly takes the viral PowerPoint party trend to another level, with folks creating presentations to help their single friends find love at local breweries, an alternative to dating apps.
Alyssa Klauder making a presentation about her friend, Rich D’Antonio, at an event at Myers Brewing recently.
After seeing viral Tiktok videos of Pitch-A-Friend in Seattle, friends Schipke and Brogan decided single Philadelphians needed a similar event. For Schipke, the place to start was at Punch Buggy, one of the neighbourhood breweries that became her go-to hangout spot when she moved from South Philly to Kensington in 2021. The bar owners agreed to host the event after seeing the TikToks, and the first iteration kicked off in November 2022.
“I come from the startup space, so I’m very familiar with pitch decks, [which] are really popular at pitching events,” Schipke said. “I thought it was a unique twist to apply it to the dating world, kind of like if [you gave your friends] full control over a dating profile.”
The duo have produced 18 Pitch-A-Friend events at various Philly breweries like Meyers Brewing in Fishtown and Victory Brewing Company near Logan Square. What began with a couple of folks pitching now has up to 10 presenters at each event.
“Right away, there was a ton of interest and pretty high demand,” she said. “You can tell a lot of people have sat through corporate presentations that have been very boring, and they’re excited to do their own spin on something they’re a subject matter expert on: Being a friend.”
A nurse by day, Kristen Coyne doesn’t normally create presentations that aren’t “about paediatric trauma and intubated kids. I don’t do this kind of thing.” She used online graphic design platform Canva to create a whimsical, colourful presentation to pitch her friend Kayli McGlynn. Coyne invited a few friends to help edit and give the stamp of approval before taking the mic at Meyers on Friday.
For McGlynn, the pitch was a fun surprise. Coyne saw the event on Meyers’ Instagram page and shared it in her groupchat to see who would let her pitch them. McGlynn agreed but had no idea what was in store for the night.
“My 2024 motto is ‘do it for the plot’, so I’m just going for it,” McGlynn said. “We’re doing things that maybe would scare us a little bit.”
While McGlynn did not get any numbers that night, she said it was a “fun night out with my friends even if it didn’t pay off in the long run”.
D’Antonio also did not get any messages from potential suitors, but would do it again. He didn’t know what to expect. Including the Costco membership card, he gave his phone to Klauder the day before the event to go through and find photos for her presentation, which was delivered infomercial style.
“I’ve never had a lot of success with dating apps‚” D’Antonio said. “I’ve always had a lot better luck just meeting people at bars and things like that. So it was more of a natural thing for me to try, I think. And this was just something different – it was fun for me.”
Schipke said folks returning to events have gotten matches, or that people have later reached out to those pitched. She’s been working on collecting data for a survey this year to get some hard numbers on the success rate. But the event is really just for fun.
“We’re not matchmakers – we just like to partner with [our local] breweries,” Schipke said. “It’s a unique event [that’s] been very entertaining, a ton of fun and a lot of laughs.”
Presenters take turns pitching with simple to elaborately decorated PowerPoint slides, sharing their friends’ best qualities with photos, cheeky stories, and fun facts. Presentations must follow three key rules: Keep it fun, as it isn’t a roast; no nude pictures; and they should last about five minutes. And the best wingperson includes contact information on the last slide. After all the pitches, Schipke and Brogan ask single audience members and everyone who was pitched to raise their hands so that the singles can mingle.
The event on Jan 5 kicked off events scheduled every month or so, with the new addition of Pitch-A-Pet, where the organisers pump up furry friends for adoption from animal care and control service provider ACCT Philly between presentations. The next one will be at Punch Buggy Brewing Company in Kensington.
Folks can sign up online by filling out a questionnaire for details about themselves as presenters and the friend they’d like to pitch. Presentations can be shared via email in an attached PDF or PowerPoint slides, or with access to Google Slides or Dropbox for review.
The request to pitch reserves your spot for the next event – with a limited amount of spots per event, submitting early is the best bet (even if the presentation isn’t done). A US$5 (RM24) fee confirms a spot on the pitch deck. If an event fills up, the US$5 will be returned. Folks can attend and watch presentations throughout the night for free. Presenters and the people who are being presented get a free drink for participating, and “some liquid courage”, Schipke said.
Pitch-A-Friend Philly offers examples of former pitches on their website to help new presenters. Schipke suggests featuring the things that you love about your friend, why you think they’d be great for a potential partner, and what they’re looking for.
“We’ve seen great presenters that may not have the design skills but are really good at storytelling, or you could just tell they’re really passionate about how great their friend is,” Schipke said. “It really comes down to having the right person to pitch and present.” – Tribune News Service/The Philadelphia Inquirer/Hira Qureshi
