Pittsburgh Tomorrow hosts “homecoming” weekend of events with future-themed artist showcase
Pittsburgh Business Times - Looking to capture the energy generated by the StartUP PGH week of events, local nonprofit Pittsburgh Tomorrow kept the festivities rolling into the weekend.
The organization’s “Pittsburgh Homecoming Weekend” looked to welcome “Pittsburgh Ex-Pats and would-be Pittsburghers for a weekend of connection, culture and community.”
The weekend began on Friday night, with a futuristic-themed welcoming party titled “Pittsburgh Tomorrow: A City on the Rise,” held at Rockwell Park in Point Breeze.
The event heavily featured local artists and creatives, with installations created by Johannes DeYoung, Brendan Burch, Wendy Willis, Julian Glander, Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh, Sujin Kim, Kevin Lorenzi, Natalie Westbrook, and Jamie Wolfe and Kristen Lauth Shaeffer. There were also live dance performances by Attack Theatre, directed by Michele de la Reza and Peter Kope, and music by DJ/producer Hussein Pwono, aka DJ pvkvsv.
“Tonight marks the crescendo of StartUP PGH, and it marks the beginning of the Pittsburgh Homecoming. The idea, of course, is to bring in people, to kind of take the lid off the bushel basket of the terrific cultural and quality-of-life offerings we have here,” Doug Heuck, CEO of Pittsburgh Tomorrow, said on Friday evening. “We’ve got more than a couple hundred people coming in. Some are boomerangers, Pittsburgh ex-pats, people who are considering moving here.”
Friday night’s party was just the beginning of Pittsburgh Tomorrow’s plans for Homecoming Weekend. On Saturday, the organization hosted its “Culture Crawl” event, where 250 out-of-towners signed up to each receive two free tickets to one of the region’s cultural offerings — including the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival, the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Fallingwater, the Kamin Science Center, the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium, the Pittsburgh Pirates game, the 59th Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museums, the Phipps Flower Show and the Andy Warhol Museum. Plus, on Saturday morning, Pittsburgh tomorrow hosted an event with high school participants in its Leadership Corps, in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, Tree Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, to plant 250 trees in the region, celebrating America’s 250th anniversary.
“Bringing everyone together is a big step toward leveraging our strengths and letting the world know why Pittsburgh is the place to visit, start a business and succeed,” Heuck said in a statement.
Pittsburgh Tomorrow was founded in 2024 with the goal of reversing decades of population decline in the Pittsburgh region, with a mission to attract, welcome and retain newcomers to the area.