As summer rolls around in sunny San Luis Obispo, locals are looking for activities to get them out of the house, particularly after being cooped up all year. SLO Axe Co. a new, mobile axe-throwing company is providing a fun, fresh way to spend time outside with friends. Our team decided to cover them for this cycle’s story because we felt that it was an innovative, new company deserving of a profile.
Once we chose SLO Axe Co. as our story subjects, it was time for research. Journalism senior and team member Yasel Hurtado worked to gather any information on local axe-throwing and get opinions from locals on what they would want to know about SLO Axe Co.
“Completing the Community Outreach Report was my favorite part of this story because it was fun to hear locals’ opinions on what is a pretty obscure sport. To my surprise, everyone I spoke to was super interested in trying it out!” Hurtado said.
Local publications like the Tribune had previously covered axe-throwing’s growing popularity in SLO, but SLO Axe Co. is the first company in the area that brings the sport to the party with their mobile axe-throwing setup. Knowing this made our team even more excited about capturing this story.
“I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet the Cornings and report on their new business. They were extremely nice people and I think interviewing them was my favorite part of this project,” journalism senior Evan Pettingill said. “I also did not have the most experienced writing feature stories, so it was fun being able to do something new.”
Beyond what is obviously visually stunning about this story, the owners of SLO Axe Co’s vision for their company truly inspired our team.
“We fell in love and kind of got on fire for axe throwing during a family trip. We ended up going to a physical location out in Arizona and just had this amazing experience. We came back here to the Central Coast and couldn’t understand why it didn’t exist here,” founder of SLO Axe Co. Matt Corning said. “This was back in March of 2020 so we were on the cusp of signing a lease and actually getting a physical location when COVID-19 hit. We decided to pivot the business and go mobile to start.”
COVID-19 did not hinder our team from (safely) going out and capturing SLO Axe Co’s magic, however. Our team member Grace Power Smith attended their event at SLO Brew Rock and captured some amazing stills and video of axe-throwers in action.
“Coming up with creative ideas isn’t really my strong suit so it was nice to throw around ideas with Kim and my group members,” senior journalism student Grace Power Smith said. “I was able to improve some of the skills I worked on during the video portion, such as working with Adobe Premiere and editing audio. This was a fun assignment!”
Our team’s vision for this story was for it to be visually stunning because of the physical exertion that axe-throwing is known for. Our team member Ivy Yahnke worked hard on audio/video this week to make that happen.
“I loved the experience I had last week on audio / video because I haven’t had much video experience since taking my last broadcast class, so it was great to get back to video editing for a bit,” Yahnke said. “Also the owners of Slo Axe Co. were so great to meet and to interview!”
Overall, conceptualizing and creating this story challenged each member of our team in a different way, however, we are so glad we could shine some light on a new local business during this time.