Success Walk puts texting out of step

KITCHENER — The concept for Youth and Stars Success Walk is a simple one.

“It’s about human contact,” Toronto promoter Mark Higgins said.

Not texting. Not snap-chatting. Higgins hopes to see young people, 16 and over, engaging with celebrities, mentors and each other in an effort to open their minds to different career paths from plumbing to politics to high-tech.

“Nobody has ever done a walk-and-talk before — so this is original,” he said

This latest event from the promoter who brought oneand-a-half Big Music Fests to Kitchener’s McLennan Park — Aerosmith rocked the reclaimed city dump in 2014 while 2015’s second-day and headline act Rod Stewart were jettisoned with Higgins citing poor ticket sales — will be free on Saturday, Sept. 30.

You want a rock show? You’re out of luck.

There will be music played between up to 10 marquee speakers in an afternoon event based at city hall, with Carl Zehr Square rented for about $500.

The four-kilometre route begins at city hall on Zehr Square, where booths from companies and service providers will be set up, and will travel through the downtown and Victoria Park before concluding back at city hall.

Registration is at 1 p.m. The two-to-three-hour event and walk begins at 2 p.m.. A celebration caps it off. An event website www.youthandstars.com lays it all out.

Maybe a local band will play a song or two. But that’s about it.

“Music is very important,” said Higgins, the father of two teenage girls. “But I don’t want that to override what a motivational speaker just said.”

A year ago, Higgins brought FuzeNation to a Kitchener industrial building, putting Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak on the same bill as Norwegian DJ Kygo. Conceptually, he feels it was a success. Financially and crowd-wise, it was not.

With the Success Walk, Higgins is hoping thousands will attend.

“I’m hoping for seven,” he said. “I think it’s attainable.”

On Friday, Higgins wasn’t ready to name the celebrities

he had lined up to appear at Success Walk. But he said he had three stars ready to take part.

“They don’t want to be mentioned just yet.”

But his speakers are to include social entrepreneur and public speaking coach Jagneet Singh. As well, one of the artists behind the “Highway of Heroes” mural, Kedre Brown, will create a mural of the Success Walk, Higgins said.

Higgins believes Kitchener is the right-size city to launch and maintain his walking-and-talking career fair, which could be transplanted to bigger cities.

“It’s big but not too big that I can’t draft something that’s kind of personalized and human,” Higgins said. “Kitchener is the city of kindness. I’ve met a lot of great people there who like new ideas and are hip to what’s going on.”

Of course, the weather may have the final say on how successful the event is.

“I hope it doesn’t rain on the first one.”