You know how the snowball effect works, right? You start doing one thing you love & makes you feel good, and step by step bigger & greater things follow it, leaving you with more determination and confidence regarding what your initiative can grow into.
Our snowball journey with event planning, hosting and organising goes way back in our early steps as a volunteer Rugby team associated with environmental and social actions, called “the Cretan Gunners”. The need for free athleticism inspired the creation of the first Rugby team in Crete, which gradually sparked more and more initiatives that led us where we are today (check more in the Rugby section).
Some History:
Celebrating our vocation and huge wins with rapidly growing participation in our actions, we found ourselves hosting party after party; carrying generators on our backs to mountain tops, nature-drowned hiking paths, rivers, beaches and literally any gem-corner we’d find on the island able to host our bonding through music get-togethers. From abandoned warehouses to forests, and from our own Club to traditional villages’ squares and field yards, our events echoed our actions across the country, multiplying the dozens of participants into thousands.
What we whole-heartedly offered, always entrance-free, soon became a necessity for all those involved. The coming of Covid-19 locked us up at the time of our prime, which only made the need for our get-togethers grow even stronger. The risk of continuing our music collectives now involved not only technical difficulties and weather-related obstacles, but also security issues, neighbouring complaints and of course, chances of facing the law. And yes, as you probably guessed already, we went for it anyway.
Having always invested in personal responsibility and born right in decision making, along with sincere communication (with everyone, including the locals) and respectful attitude towards the ground that hosts us each time, we found our way to hold some successful Secret Gigs in the midst of Covid -whose scar of excitement & unity we’ll carry to our dying breaths. Hyper-focused in the planning, organising & problem solving activities, we managed to unlock a whole different level of event hosting & production, that got enriched with a deeper understanding of how the law works, after facing some small litigation charges from which we were later fully acquitted.
All these shared experiences of hardship, enthusiasm, obstacle overcoming and reward worked as the sticking glue for the members of our community; they brought people with diverse and otherwise “conflicted” backgrounds hugging in tears of joy about the magic they co-created. Progressingly, organising and hosting events didn’t just put a signature to every year’s wins, but became part of our identity as Cretan Gunners. The only thing that would now complete our matured initiative, was a Venue of our own.
Summer 2022 finally found us enjoying the fruits of years’ work and devotion; upon our founding member’s family hairloom for generations, a traditional mansion, fully equipped to host all we dreamt, was renovated to host our grand initiative: the Youth of Dope. Our own, private Venue. Our Hostel /Bar /Hub, able to host more than 10,000 people. Our way of allowing our passions to become lifestyle.
Initial parties became concerts, and concerts transformed into FESTIVALS. Today we count more than 150 bands from Greece & abroad brought in town due to our annual festivals, and a significant contribution to the “Support Art Workers Movement” in which we have actively participated since 2020.
Through this multi-level journey we discovered not only what is going on behind the scenes in event production, but also how responsibly and well-organised we do it. Loving the procedure made us perform like no other producer around, and without even knowing it we climbed up amongst the top event organisers in Greece. The constant amazing feedback and respect we received from professionals we’ve worked with throughout these years made us confident regarding our work, hosting, planning, creativity and overall professionalism, leading us to make the next step; letting volunteerism mature into professional event production & hosting.
All kinds of inspirational events such as music nights, small/ big/ or large scale concerts, volunteer actions celebrated with afterparties, book presentations, workshops, theatrical or other performances, rugby games, martial arts seminars, exhibitions and literally any thing or concept we find intriguing can be gladly hosted in our luxury HQ in Kalorouma, Chania, aka The YOD Village, as long as our value systems remain on the same page.
