North Texas Man "Crowdfunds" $90,000 Birthday Party
DALLAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - If it was a part of pop culture in the late 80s and early 90s, there's a good chance it was a part of Jared Guynes 30th birthday party.
The Rockwall kid-at-heart threw himself an over-the-top birthday party featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Vanilla Ice, Young MC, the DeLorean from Back to the Future, Claudia Wells, and whatever else Guynes could fit into his nearly $90,000 party budget.
"It's even better than I imagined," Guynes said at his party in Dallas.
There was no way Guynes said he could afford this on his own, so he shared his idea for what he likes to call an "epic party" on the website Crowdtilt.com.
He posted if people contributed $50 to his party fund, in return they would get an invitation to come.
"My goal was if I could get $35,000, I could pull this concert off," said Guynes. "In 19 days I got $35,000 and in the eleven days that followed we more than double that."
Guynes said he spent every dime contributed to the fund on his party – adding musical acts, celebrity guest appearances, and magicians. Guynes even hired a live monkey to walk around the party and entertain his 1,300 guests.
Doctor Janet Johnson, a social media expert at the University of Texas – Dallas, said what Guynes did is called "crowdfunding".
"It has to be something that the crowd, the audience, wants to see come into the market place," she explained.
Internet sites like Crowdtilt.com and Kickstarter.com have made crowdfunding easier and are changing the expectations of consumers, especially those of the social media generation.
Doctor Johnson said businesses should take note - if they don't put it out in the marketplace, customers now can and will on their own. "It actually gives the consumer what they want," she said.
Guynes said it turn his crazy idea into reality. "All you have to do is put the idea out there and spread the word," he said. "If it's a good idea, the people will stand behind it."
For an "epic" birthday party, they might even celebrate it.
(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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