Traxx Girls CEO Melissa Scott: ‘The black gay dollar is strong’


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Traxx Girls
www.traxxgirls.com

Traxx Girls was recently honored by MillerCoors T.A.P. What does that mean to you?

The award was well received and greatly appreciated. It meant MillerCoors appreciated us as much as we appreciate their community and organizational support. With their assistance we were able to coordinate more unity events within our super divided community. It made for an amazing year. …

Why do you enjoy party promotions? What’s a typical day for you, if there is such a thing?

I love party promotions because executing is my thing. I love the planning, the organizing, the strategies we come up with and then the execution. The look on people’s faces that are having a good time. I love event coordination in general. I love making our customers happy at parties and clients happy at events.

I am on the phone non-stop all day long. I have a meeting with someone every single day I’m in town and out of town. Most days consist of two to four meetings. …

The thing about me that most people don’t know is as hard as I work, I play the same. So every day I do something extremely fun — movies, bowling, BBQ, show, comedy club…Something every single day!

Do you wish for more corporate sponsors for Atlanta’s Black Gay Pride? And why do you feel it’s important to put your own money into these events?

Yes, we do spend our own money to produce these events. We don’t just wish, we need [corporate sponsors for Black Gay Pride]! We have searched for years for someone to assist us with this and have been unsuccessful, so finally we started doing it ourselves and have found new success.

Avian Watson (our PR/sponsorship coordinator) is integral to Traxx Girls and she took on the role after watching our frustration over the years. She has had more success in the two years seeking out assistance on her own than the thousands of dollars we have paid people that specialize in that type of work.

The black gay dollar is strong. It sets market trends in areas as well as having a general high disposable income ratio. It deserves corporate support. As far as using my personal money, that’s black and white. If we don’t believe in us, why should anyone else?

What’s it like to not have Durand Robinson around anymore and how you have been coping? [Robinson, of Traxx Atlanta, the male counterpart of Traxx Girls, was killed Aug. 25, 2010. His case remains unsolved.]

Not having Durand is the single most sad thing ever. That is my friend, my confidant, my uncle, my brother, my mentor. When I made what someone would consider a bad decision I always felt like it was OK if he said it would be OK…and it always was OK. He was a living angel. No one person could claim him— he belonged to us all. He was so funny and so caring and so silly and so serious and so professional and so tacky and so fly and so country all at the same time.

[I’m just] coping…just coping. I don’t know how, we just kept moving, kept going.

What do you do on your down time?

I play a lot. I enjoy time with my girlfriend and my friends. We BBQ and go to the beach. We really love LA and Mexico. Those are two places we frequent monthly.

 

Top photo: Traxx Girls CEO Melissa Scott at a Traxx event. (by ShineHog.com)