Today we’d like to introduce you to Kimberly Reyes-Diaz and Alex Abbott.
Kimberly and Alex, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Scene|ORL came about as an idea in 2017/2018 between several people who recognized the lack of cohesion in the music scene. It originally started with Alex Abbott, Mark Comer with Leya Siri as the face. We would do a weekly video announcing upcoming shows. After a year the team changed but the reporting stayed the same. Another year later the concept moved to announcing and reviewing shows, attempting to break out as a ‘Zine. During that period of team Scene|ORL grew a team of photographers and covered almost every show in town. This was the status leading right up to “The covid times”. During covid the music scene was completely obliterated, so we took time to ourselves and contemplated packing up. When the shows slowly started to come back Alex was approached by Kim Reyes-Diaz to manage and maintain the brand. Together they once again identified the lack of cohesion in the reporting and announcing of upcoming shows. The team is small but focused on letting Orlando know what’s going on in its up-and-coming music scene.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It definitely has not been a smooth road, Covid killing the music scene got us to a point where we thought we wouldn’t be able to continue. Currently, we’re the smallest team we’ve ever been which is good and bad because we can get stuff done quickly but we don’t have the manpower to take on more events.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Alex is a professor at Valencia College for music production. He started Scene|ORL but currently runs ConsultQnA.com and the Consult Q&A team. Scene|ORL reach hundreds of thousands of people within Florida and helped grow and highlight shows, and worked with the music scene to gain into own recognition.
Kim manages Scene|Orl as well as produces the live stream for Consult QnA. She is also a recent Valencia College Alumn of the Sound Technology program.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Orlando has some wonderful gems, in both the music and food scene…too many to name, but IYKYK. One of the things that’s hard is the post-Covid regrowth the music scene is going through. There isn’t the same level of communication that existed between venues and bands, and reviewer/announcement channels. It’s slow, and we’re trying to help accelerate everything back to Orlando’s state of music from the early to mid-2000s when the scene was explosive.
Contact Info:
- Email: thesceneorl@gmail.com
- Website: SceneOrl.com
- Instagram: @sceneorl
- Facebook: Scene Orl
- Youtube: Scene Orl
Image Credits
Alex Abbot
Kimberly Reyes-Diaz
August Burns Red
Kinder than Wolves
Woolbright
Killswitch Engage
