Hot Potato Hearts: Speed Dating & Singles Dance Party
February 07, 20236:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Advance tickets for this event have been claimed. Please note our waiting list policy.
Hot Potato Hearts speed dating event at Pilot Brewing.
About the Event
Hello to all my single spuds!!! I’d like to personally invite you to HOT POTATO HEARTS speed dating! We hope to see you there 😉
—Your host, Katie Conway
The MCA is proud to collaborate with Katie Conway, founder and host of Hot Potato Hearts, for this special event.
Hot Potato Hearts is a new platform created to help people build meaningful connections in a low-pressure, safe environment. Our goal is to create a welcoming, fun, inclusive, and relaxed atmosphere for cultivating relationships—whether romantic or platonic. During the speed dating round, participants talk to everyone regardless of sexual orientation, so everyone has a chance to snag a date or make some new friends! Then dance the night away with other singles during a set by DJ EvieTheCool, who will also be DJing from 5 to 9 PM.
Follow @hotpotatoheartshotpotato for updates.
Proof of vaccination is required to participate.
Waiting List Policy
The MCA Box Office starts a waiting list one hour before a program begins. At that time, numbers are given out to patrons on a first-come, first-served basis, one number per patron per ticket. As space becomes available, Box Office staff call out waiting list numbers.
Patrons must be present to take a number. Because staff cannot predict when or if tickets will become available, it is important for those on the waiting list to remain within hearing distance. If a number is called and no one responds, Box Office staff will dismiss the number and call the next number.
About the Creator
Katie Conway
Katie Conway created Hot Potato Hearts last January after years of being distraught with the soul-less swiping of dating apps. The Chicagoland native has always had an affinity for building community and is incredibly grateful for the way this city has embraced her and Hot Potato Hearts. Conway makes sure to celebrate her other passions sustainability, creativity, and fashion within this dating venture. She sources secondhand paper (shout out The Wasteshed) for the name tags, then properly composts them. She plays with color, patterns, and imagination in her eye-catching posters. And lastly, she treats every Hot Potato Hearts event as her own red carpet and lets her personal style shine.
Hot Potato Hearts has already seen so much growth within its first year, from hosting one monthly speed dating event to now hosting three speed-dating events, Perfect Mash (a live and interactive dating show), Smart Potato (trivia), and collaborations with other Chicago communities every month. Conway knows she owes all her success to people showing up and supporting this new adventure. She hopes she can support them right back by growing and creating more space for Hot Potato Hearts. This queer lady is just getting started!
About the DJ
EvieTheCool. Photo: Griz Preciado @gripz.
Since May 2015, when Chicago-based Evie The Cool began DJing, she has played with Steve Aoki, Vic Mensa, and Chance The Rapper, among others. She has performed at many different venues in and outside of the US, including Lollapalooza, North Coast Fest, Navy Pier, Complexcon, and the Obama Foundation.
A year later she founded Babes Only, a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring, empowering, and educating women through projects and conversations. Through this organization Evie has worked with hundreds of creative women and consistently supports DJs from all over the world. In 2020, Evie also joined forces with other Chicago community organizers to form Powers for Good, an initiative that uses organizers’ talents, resources, and passions to strengthen their neighborhoods, which has been acknowledged by the Obama Foundation as a “neighborhood superhero.”
In 2020 she also started working with the London-based publication Viper Magazine in creative direction and production. Since then she’s interviewed different artists and organized creative photo shoots for them.