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Friendly Fridays: What Makes Somewhere Worth Going To?
Blessing Family 🪘🔥
Where are you going next?
Sounds simple.
Country.City.Flight.
That was the question sitting underneath this month's Summer Send-Off: Passport Party when I first saw the campaign.
And I should probably admit something.
My answer was easy.
Salvador.
I've been working on the performance programme for the Salvador Global Village Grand Opening for months. Music. Dance. Sound. Local artists. Guest performers.
Everybody knew I was going.
I was the sensible one.
Then Elias announced he was coming too.
Apparently, all it takes is one murder-mystery game involving pathways and connections and suddenly the man discovers Brazil. 😂
And then Maya said yes.
So now there are three of us going to Salvador, and somehow I'm the least interesting one.
I would like it officially recorded that I was going first.
But that's the funny thing about asking people where they're going next.
Sometimes you think you know the answer.
Then something changes.
Where Are You Going Next?
Twenty years of Friendly Fridays have taught us that this question rarely has only one answer.
People walk through our doors and say Jamaica.
New York.
Lisbon.
Nairobi.
London.
Sometimes they mean exactly that.
A holiday does not always need to become emotional anthropology. 😂
But sometimes a destination is carrying something else.
Somebody says Jamaica and what they're really looking for is people.
Somebody says New York and means freedom.
Somebody says Lisbon and means the first journey after a life changed.
Somebody says Nairobi because it's a place their parents have described for as long as they can remember.
And sometimes somebody says London when what they really mean is:
I've never travelled without somebody I already know.
That's why I like this month's question.
Where are you going next?
It asks about travel.
But if you give it enough room, it starts asking about you.
Sometimes You Need the People Before the Place
This is the bit people misunderstand about Friendly Fridays.
Yes, there is an event.
There will be music.
There will be drinks.
There will be something happening in the room.
For Summer Send-Off: Passport Party, we'll be talking about travel, swapping destinations and asking everybody that question:
Where are you going next?
But Friendly Fridays was never really about filling a programme.
It's about creating somewhere people can meet before the journey.
You don't have to arrive knowing everybody.
Actually, I'd rather you didn't.
Come in.
Get yourself settled.
Talk to somebody.
Ask where they've been.
Tell them where you've been thinking about going.
Discover that the person sitting three chairs away has been looking at the same journey you have.
Or discover something completely different.
Maybe you don't know where you're going.
That's allowed too.
Because sometimes the first step isn't choosing the destination.
It's finding people you might want to travel with.
And that is where the Village begins to matter.
The Village Is Bigger Than One Room
Twenty years ago, Friendly Fridays began with one room in Leicester.
In the world we're writing now, that idea has travelled.
Not copied.
Translated.
London doesn't need to sound like Leicester.
Nairobi shouldn't sound like London.
Accra doesn't need Leicester to tell it how to move.
Every Tribal Lounge belongs to the people and culture around it.
Different city.
Different rhythm.
Same invitation.
Come in. Meet somebody.
That's what twenty years of the Village has taught us.
An idea can begin in one room and travel much farther than anybody standing in that room imagined.
And when I look at where we are now - Leicester, London, Nairobi, Accra and beyond - I sometimes wonder what the people building the Village with us today will make of all this twenty years from now.
Maybe they'll laugh at the things we thought were complicated.
Maybe they'll take Friendly Fridays somewhere none of us has imagined yet.
I hope so.
Because the Village was never supposed to stay exactly as we found it.
Different rooms.
Different people.
Different answers to the same question.
Where are you going next?
Come Meet the Village
There's a line we're using in the story:
You don't have to know anybody before you book.
I like that.
But there's another part that matters just as much.
Come meet the people you might travel with.
That's the relationship between Friendly Fridays and membership.
Friendly Fridays opens the door.
Membership changes your relationship with what is on the other side of it.
You stop simply watching where everybody else is going.
You become part of the community that can take the journey. That's exactly how the membership conversation develops in Episode III: invitation first, then membership, then movement.
And we're still building the real-world version of that Village.
So if you've been following us for a while…
Reading the stories.
Watching the journeys.
Thinking about coming to a Friendly Friday.
Looking at a Tribe trip and wondering whether you'd know anybody.
Maybe you don't need to know exactly where you're going next.
Maybe the next decision is simply whether you want to come through the door.
🥁 Join the Tribe
Membership is open across our Local, Global and Legacy Membership tiers.
Becoming a member connects you more deeply to the Village we're building - including future Friendly Fridays gatherings, Tribe journeys, member benefits and the growing community around Global Village Stories.
And if you want to see what happened when I asked Where Are You Going Next?, continue into Chapter One of our new Global Village Mystery:
Episode III begins with a Friendly Fridays campaign.
But Salvador is already pulling three Founders towards the same place.
I'm going for the music.
Maya has her own reason.
And apparently Elias is going because of murder.
His description.
Not mine. 😂
Well.
Technically, his description is probably immersive programme design.
The family has reached a different conclusion.
And before you go, answer the question for me:
Where are you going next?
A country?
A city?
A journey you've been putting off?
Or do you not know yet?
Because I don't know yet is still an answer.
Sometimes you meet the people first.
Then you work out where you're going.
Until the next rhythm finds us…
Keep the story alive.
Keep the culture moving.
Respect always,
Zaire 🪘🔥🌍
Regional Operations Officer & Soundspace Director | Global Village Stories
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