The cat-watching tour in an American neighborhood in Minnesota began annually in June. By 2024, more than 500 people had attended.
John Edwards is a citizen of the city of Minneapolis, state of Minnesota. 7 years ago he came up with the idea of making a tour in your neighborhood to see the cats that peeked out of the windows of the houses.
What started as a small group activity, and above all as a fundnow became a an event attended by hundreds of people every year. The last event brought together more than 500 cat lovers.
Minnesota Cat Tour: The Story
In 2017, John Edwards had the idea of doing a walking tour to celebrate cats living in a Historic MinneapolisIt started as a joke activity.
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The organizer began to call the excursion the Minnesota Cat Tour. The year of its inauguration it launched the hashtag #CatsOfTheWedgean idea born from his sense of humor and his fondness for posting photos of cats on social media.
The area where the cat tour takes place is a historic district densely populated neighborhood that is home to many apartment buildings. It is also a neighborhood with historic architecture, with homes built in the 1890s or earlier.
The American Cat Show began to be held, year after year, in the month of June.
Scaling up the event
The idea started small, as something for people to walk around the neighborhood and look at. the cats that are always in the windowsFor the first two years it was actually very small: it brought together about 20 people at a time and none of the cats were “pre-registered” to be observed.
Edwards explains that he didn’t realize it could be a big deal until 2019.
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That year, the event became the first truly large one. Suddenly, hundreds of people camewhich in turn gave the event a lot of traction on social media, in print media, and even several local television programs.
This year the participation was as surprising as ever. More than 500 people came to visit 20 stops in June 2024. The best thing is that it became a true community experience where you not only see kittens, but you walk streets unknown to hikers and meet people from the neighborhood and surrounding areas.
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