Backstage at the Desk

Every site has an origin story, and ours is not very glamorous. It started with notes scribbled after concerts: which acts made the crowd move, where the shade was, which food stall was still open at one in the morning. Those notes turned into posts, and the posts slowly turned into something people came back to.

From notebook to magazine

The first pages were simple festival reports. Then readers began asking practical questions. How hot does it get at night? Is it easy to get from the beach to the venue? What else is there to do in town? Answering them properly meant writing about the reef, the cenotes, the food and the rhythm of a small Caribbean town, not just the music.

Along the way the site also collected articles on subjects far from the beach. Some arrived through collaborations, others because a topic interested us at the time. They remain part of the archive.

How the work is shared

A handful of people keep things running, usually around other jobs. One of us tends to the music pages, another looks after travel and food, and everyone edits everyone else. Pieces are read aloud before they go up, because a sentence that trips the tongue usually trips the reader too.

What has not changed

We still write for the person standing at the edge of the crowd, wondering whether to move closer to the stage. Plain language, honest caveats and a soft spot for drums are the constants. Everything else, from the design to the categories, keeps evolving as the site does.