Erin Drain

Hi friends! The TL;DR is that I’ve created an official home for the collaborative & creative events that I’ve been doing my whole career, and it’s called The Food Court. Follow @thefoodcourt.projects and let’s talk about what I’ve got coming up.

After five years of running my own one-woman strategic communications and marketing agency, this year I’ve been able to turn up the volume on programming and/or producing creative events with a wide range of partners.

In particular, the push to launch The Food Court came from working with Roads & Kingdoms this spring to set up the Anti-ICE Supper Club events in Chicago, after which we ran it back with Txa Txa Club to host an indie media brunch during James Beard Weekend, which was a tremendous party thanks to the support of so many wonderful people and companies. I’ll have a special place in my heart for that brunch forever as the debut of this new project. Somewhere in there was an amazing seminar in NYC that totally rewired how I view talking about wine and sustainability.

Where do you fit in? Well, events don’t just expand my world and add to a growing Rolodex of good humans; they offer the chance to reconnect with friends and blast-from-the-past colleagues in new ways. If you’d like to work on something with me, let’s talk, whether it’s been five months or 15 years.

And definitely give a follow to The Food Court on socials, where I’ll launch the logo and website in the coming weeks, just in time to announce what’s coming next: including a WNBA All Star Weekend activation with Ticha Penicheiro in support of the Jimmy V Fund, a first-of-its-kind Portuguese food and wine week that I’m programming with AICEP in Chicago this fall, and some other exciting projects that I can’t wait to develop and announce … but you can be sure it’s going to involve food and beverage, with a healthy dose of basketball in the mix.