Is it almost Wednesday? I’ve been back from New York and the 2011 New York Voiceover Mixer created by my friend Erik Sheppard – this year co-sponsored by my friend Marc Graue – for two days now, but I am still reveling in the sights, sounds and feelings of being in New York City with a wonderful group of people who mean quite a lot to me.

Professional voiceover folk. People who do what I do. Who understand what I do. From all around the world. From small towns to the Big Apple, they all understand what it means to get a an email with a script from a client who trusts you to “do your thing.”

But it is more than that. These are virtual friends who became real friends. Friends you can hug.

The road to the mixer started with an old message board called the Voiceover Cyberstation. The host at the time was “Sammy.” And we had rousing discussions on many of the rousing topics we still discuss today – financial core being one of the biggies. We didn’t talk about online casting – P2P – because it didn’t exist yet.

When the Voiceover Cyberstation stopped, my friend DB Cooper threw up what was going to be a temporary site she called the VO-BB. Many of the participants on the Cyberstation moved over to the VO-BB to try to maintain the conversation.

What began to emerge on the VO-BB was a sense of community. A group of people from around the world who “knew” each other online and began to care about each other. We were starting to bond.

In 2007, many of the VO-BB group met face-to-face for the first time at VOICE 2007 in Las Vegas. The bonding solidified and fast friendships were formed.  We meet up when we travel on business or pleasure. We help each other with technical issues – sometimes from across the pond. We help each other with personal troubles. We share in life milestones and endings.

This past Saturday afternoon before the Mixer, the VO-BB group gathered at Mustang Harry’s. What made this gathering special was that our VO-BB mom was in attendance…DB Cooper was there in person.

At the mixer itself, more VO-BB’rs – and more bonding. The interesting thing is that there are now people in our circle of friends who didn’t start out as VO-BB’rs. You know the saying “Any friend of yours…” Well, that seems to apply here.

If you take the VOICE conferences, the New York Mixers, the FaffCon conferences and various other events (like weddings) – add in Facebook – well, this group of voiceover artists will open their hearts and their homes as needed.

Do we stay up too late? Do we have one cocktail too many? Do we travel across the country and around the world with no real business to do? Many of us did for this mixer. The idea of spending time with our friends was important to us. And the fact that it is New York at Christmas was an added bonus.

Want to know more? Here are some links to blogs by a few of my friends. I know there are more. Just can’t find them at the moment.

Tom Dheere – http://tomdheere.com/blog1/index.php/gkn-weekly-update-12511/

Dan Friedman – http://sound4vo.com/my-34-hour-new-york-city-voiceover-mixer-experience/

Dave Courvoisier – http://www.courvo.biz/2011/12/mixer-musings.html