The third open mic Night event at Inklings Coffee and Tea happened on March 8, and it was a smashing success. Inklings, the City of Pleasanton and Ptownlife Newstream all had a hand in making this event come together. Originally, they thought to keep it once a year, but since it was so successful, they decided to make it once a semester.

“The past events have been well received and well attended. We had several students ask for the events to ask for the events to happen more often, which is why we asked Inklings to partner on September 2018 for open mic night. Initially we thought it would be something that we put together once a year” said Jonathan Louie, General manager of Inklings Coffee and Tea.

This year’s event had 15 pre-registered acts and several walk-up act registrations. All of the acts were led by talented high school performers and the atmosphere was super casual and comfortable. Some of the acts were the creatures of impulse, the high school musical collaborative, part of Foothill’s Jazz music ensemble, The MHell comedy show, and many other skilled artists.

The High School musical collaborative did an amazing job and made many appearances throughout the night.

“We are a group of eleven high schoolers,we just had a small group of us performing today, we auditioned in the beginning of the year. We all play different instruments and we write [songs], then we play our songs for each other. We get to play them together too, it’s a really good group” said Tyler Sullivan (‘22), a member of high school musical collaborative.

Their group is one of the sponsors of Open mic night, so they got the news about it through their director, Mark Duncanson, who also directs Creatures of Impulse.

“ This was like the perfect open mic, it had a good diversity of seasoned polished performers that were passionate about what they do, there were some spontaneous performers, who said hey I’m going to try this song, so it was a lot of fun and there was a lot of great talent” said Duncanson.

The High School Musical Collaborative has two performances from the 13-18th of April, so be sure to see those!

Our hosts this year, Vanshaj Singhania and Claire Shin, were excellent and carried out the entire event with ease and confidence

“I was MC and also involved in planning the event, putting the acts together, making sure people know who we are and Ptown Life, and  hosting the event and making sure people have a good time, it was honestly the best experience of my life and I wish to do more[events]in the future,” said Singhania.

Both of them enjoyed the event immensely.

“Everyone is so talented. It’s a really good way to showcase all the talented individuals in this area,” said Shin.

March’s Open Mic turned out perfect, if you missed out on this semester’s, be sure to come in and watch next semester’s, and better, perform! It’s the perfect opportunity to display your artistry!