MyScoper.com Celebrates Two Years of Growth – and Success

RSS contributor Stephanie Koehler (center), creator of the 2009 Bouncy Ball New Year event held at Center In The Square, with Wendy Schuyler (left), Beth Deel (right), who helped promote the event that involved dropping over 11,000 rubber balls into the atrium.
RSS contributor Stephanie Koehler (center), creator of the 2009 Bouncy Ball New Year event held at Center In The Square, with Wendy Schuyler (left), Beth Deel (right), who helped promote the event that involved dropping over 11,000 rubber balls into the atrium.

Roanoke’s unique event information resource, myScoper.com, turns two years old on November 15.  The brainchild of two local businesswomen, Beth Deel and Wendy Schuyler, the idea has seen continuous growth and community support. While the imaginative and vibrant personalities of its creators (often dubbed “The myScoper Girls”) certainly drive the image – they are quick to note that myScoper is a Roanoke community initiative.

“It’s a machine we built and maintain,” says co-creator, Beth Deel, “but it’s powered by the awesome events and interesting people of the Roanoke region.”

“We really just got tired of people saying there was nothing to do in Roanoke,” says co-creator, Wendy Schuyler.  “It simply wasn’t true.  There was just no central place to get the information.”

There are two key elements that make the myScoper.com event calendar such a useful tool: Easy access to information and streamlined community event postings.  Partnerships with other organizations who offer their own event calendars, such as the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University, the Emerging Artists Series (Roanoke City Libraries), Virginia Tech Hokie hockey (at the Roanoke Civic Center), WDBJ-7 and Roanoke Outdoors, have been beneficial. These organizations allow event planners to upload the information it is populated to all partner sites.  In an era where businesses and organizations are trying to increase efficiency and maximize their effectiveness, it is a perfect example of working smart…not hard.

The dynamic pair originally came together to pool their graphic design talents but quickly upUPperiscope, Inc. became a multi-dimensional graphic design, event creation/promotion, web design, open media strategy agency and all encompassing community resource.

On the November 15 anniversary, myScoper.com will unveil its fourth facelift, featuring new categories and additional offerings.  “We are committed to staying on top of what the community wants,” says Schuyler.  “It’s the only way to really be a useful resource.”   Deel adds, “We find ourselves at a cool cultural experience, art offering or music event every day.  There is so much going on in Roanoke…it’s exhausting!”

Speaking of “useful”… in January the creative duo launched a printed companion piece to myScoper.com called “a useful paper.”  The free, colorful monthly event calendar has become a staple in coffee shops, hotels, local businesses, restaurants and event venues.  “It was the next logical step,” says Deel, who studied dance at Hollins University and offers aerial dancing classes at The Water Heater, a unique performance/exhibition space she lives above in Old Southwest.

Evidence of a vibrant social community and easy access to information is critical – especially at a time when attracting and retaining the “twenty-something” crowd is one of the region’s primary economic development drivers.

The clever and useful myScoper approach has attracted interest elsewhere. The Virginia state tourism office and members of the entertainment community in San Francisco are already trying to figure out how they can use the format.

By Stephanie Koehler
[email protected]

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