Joe Cornell

You can feel the bass pounding alongside your heartbeat.  It’s energizing, inviting, exciting.  It makes you want to get up and dance your heart out.  That’s what it feels like when there’s a drummer on the dance floor, in sync with a Joe Cornell DJ.

This new Joe Cornell EXCLUSIVE opportunity features a core group of talented percussionists ready to bring that sense of New York savvy to your next event.  We offered a drummer in the mix of our services years ago – and now we’re bringing it back, with great acclaim.

At our White Party this fall (which used to be the Throwback Party – we keep reinventing ourselves!), we debuted a live drummer mix that, combined with the recorded music we play as DJs, really takes a party to the next level.  Drummer

With our drummer on-site, adding live percussion to the music mix, you forget there’s a DJ and feel like you’re dancing to the spontaneous music of a live band, pouring their energy onto the dance floor.

Kids love it.  Parents love it.  Even better, when the star of the party (enter your bar/bat mitzvah kid or bride/groom here…) is handed the drumsticks and kicks into the performance, under the tutelage of our Joe Cornell percussionist, well, there’s no better feeling.

Like you’re on top of the world.

Like you’re belting out a rhythm that everyone can move to.

It’s indescribable.  Give it a try.  Come see for yourself.  You’ll love it.  Trust me.

(By the way – mention this blog and get $100 off the price of a live percussionist!)

Fifth grade registration just started and we were hit with the fact that Becca’s son Ben will be in our dance program next year.

Wow.

The question that looms before us is…should Becca continue to teach on Tuesday night at Temple Israel and be her child’s teacher?  Or would that be awkward…prompting her to send Ben to Jared’s class on Monday nights and make his friends switch to the less convenient class?

Of course, Ben is excited for the 5^th grade dance TONIGHT -  November 22^nd at the JCC (7-8:30 PM, Free and open to the public!) – it’s a great night of kid-only fun among friends and future friends, as they check out what our dance program is all about and get a taste of independence at a night of partying akin to what lies ahead for them.  (Don’t worry, though, we’ll stick to line dancing and freestyle, tonight, and leave the partner dancing until 6th grade!)

But back to the question at hand.  We’re pretty sure it wouldn’t be wise for Becca and Ben to share the dance floor.  It’s an easy fix.  And an important one, as the Joe Cornell Experience prepares kids for the independence, poise and social interaction that isn’t so far away.

How cool would it be for a kid to see his mom at the head of the class?  Uhh,  maybe not.  I think we’ve decided:  Ben will take on Mondays.

In all my dreams, I never imagined I’d be a magazine publisher.

Thanks to the brilliant brainstorm of my sister and business partner, Becca Schlussel, Joe Cornell Entertainment now has a new spinoff business: Plan It! Magazine. See it online for yourself at www.PlanItMagazine.com

Any good partnership needs a realist and a dreamer, and that’s us. Our business has grown so much because we play off each other with ideas, with goals, with “what-if-we-did-this…”

Plan It! Magazine was born out of the goal of creating something useful for the consumer, while helping our partner and affiliate local businesses.

Our incredible Event-Planning Expo, in its 8th year, has grown into this annual program that people flock to and know about, a real fixture in the community. We had always produced a program book for the Expo featuring the contact information for each of the exhibitors.  We billed the book as a “keepsake” and a “planning resource” – but we got to talking: Was it really useful for participants?

As much as we wanted to believe that our show program book was everything you needed to plan a party, we knew that if we added some content and opened it up to a variety of outside advertisers, it would truly be of more benefit to the consumer.  And we decided that who better than Joe Cornell Entertainment could create a sophisticated, sleek magazine to speak to the needs of today’s party-planning consumer.  Provide tips and ideas, vendors and choices, and even respond to the financial concerns of today’s economy.  That’s why the magazine is free to the public – we want it to be a keepsake, a resource that folks keep around and turn to in the throes of planning panic.

We decided to produce 2,000 copies of 24 full-color pages, yearly – to be published in time for our Expo. Lo and behold, the first one isn’t even off the presses, we’re printing 3,000 just to satisfy all our distribution sites, and we’re aiming for twice-yearly and yes, we may even add pages, too.  There’s just so much demand and so much interest from advertisers!

I know you’re waiting for me to say that we’ve had OMG moments and hit panic mode more than once in this new venture – but honestly, building a new arm to our business is just flowing along because it’s the right time and mix for us!  We hit on something that will benefit us and benefit the consumer, and jumping into any new project is just plain fun!

I look at Plan It! Magazine, at the colorful, attention-grabbing cover (which features our niece, Jaclyn Jasgur, who celebrated her bat mitzvah just last year!) and think, wow, this family business is truly moving and shaking.

You know Joe Cornell is all about community.  We have always believed that we have everything we need right here in Michigan – right down the street! – to make a fantastic party happen.  Our new magazine, which is printed here in Michigan and designed by a local graphic artist, is another step in the fight to grow our local economy.

At Joe Cornell, our new mantra is Keeping It Local – because we believe that together, we can rebuild, invigorate and expand our economy. This is home, for you and for us, and we’re here to stay.

Get copies of Plan It! Magazine at area synagogues, Studio A, Tapper’s, the JCC, Yoga Shelter and other local businesses.