Team Note
I saw a post from The Dry Atlas this week that is living rent free in my mind and I figured I’d share because it is so aligned with our thesis at pie.
Brands have been trying to win the social feed with more content, in more formats. That playbook worked when digital attention was abundant. AI just collapsed the cost of making content, which collapsed attention along with it. Physical space — the dinner, the walk, the run club, the listening party — is the thing that doesn't scale infinitely. And that's exactly what makes it valuable.
"A brand event competes against a finite number of other events happening that night, not an algorithmically driven feed of infinite content."
I read it three times. Then I forwarded it to four people on the team.
Because this is the bet Pie made. And it's the bet you are.
You are the thing that scales when the feed stops scaling.
Every plan you put on Pie is a vote for the kind of attention a model can't fake. You're not competing with the feed. You're competing with whatever else is happening in your city this Saturday — and that's a much smaller, much more winnable fight.
Stop trying to be louder than the feed. Be somewhere the feed can't be.
✨ — Bea
🗓️ CREATOR SPOTLIGHT
Airplane Mode — New York, NY @theairplanemode.tv
Offline social experiences that restore you. Café Soul · Heat Soul. Join us IRL.
Tionne Barmer and Amber runs Airplane Mode out of NYC, and his IG bio is a thesis statement: "see you in the real world." No call to action, no link tree gymnastics, no "follow for content." Just an address and a promise.
The decision worth stealing: he didn't build "events," he built named series. Café Soul and Heat Soul are recurring formats — when someone hears the name, they already know what they're buying. That's how a DJ residency works. That's how the best private clubs work. The series is the trust unit. The repetition is the moat.
The Open Tab : rapid fire stuff that caught our eye
💰 Sunday night: the Met Gala will charge $100K per seat
This Sunday (May 4) the Met Gala bumps individual tickets to $100K — a $25K increase over last year — with tables starting at $350K. ~600 invites total, all approved by Anna Wintour. Why it matters for you: the single most expensive seat in the world right now is a chair at a dinner. The room is the product. You already make rooms.
🏃 Strava is taking itself public on the back of Gen Z run clubs
Strava's CEO told Fortune the $2B unicorn plans to IPO "at some point" — and his pitch is that Gen Z is swapping dating apps for run clubs. New running clubs on Strava are up 3.5x year over year. 22% of Gen Z now treat run clubs as their primary dating app. 72% of Gen Z say they joined one to meet people. Why it matters: when a public-market story is being built on "people show up in person now," the trend is past inflection. The creators with established IRL communities are about to look like prophets.
🧠 "Learning parties" are the TikTok format eating book clubs
Each guest shows up prepped to teach the group something — a skill, a hobby, a topic. Pizza, projector, three friends each give a 10-minute thing they're obsessed with. Cosmo wrote about it in February; the format is everywhere on TikTok now. Why it matters: this is the third consecutive trending hosting format that takes the same shape — small, specific, BYOContribution (Airplane Mode's BYOProject is the same DNA). The pattern is the lesson: the more specific the ask, the easier the room.
→ Learning parties trend (Cosmo, Feb 2026)The Rise of Generative AI in Unexpected Places
Last bite
ask your joiners anything (well, up to three things). [RELEASING IN ONE WEEK]
You can finally ask questions when people RSVP. Up to 3 open questions per plan — t-shirt sizes, dietary stuff, what they're hoping to get out of it, emails. Set them while your plan is in draft, and answers land under each joiner on the who's going page. Export the whole batch to CSV when you're prepping.
The use case: you're hosting a 30-person walk-and-brunch. You ask "any allergies?" and "how'd you hear about this?" People answer at RSVP. You walk into Sunday morning already knowing who needs the gluten-free option and which TikTok finally converted.
We hate perfection and we get shit goes wrong. This was the #1 thing y'all told us was missing — so it's the first thing we shipped this round.
One catch: questions lock when your plan goes live. So set them in draft.
PASS IT ON
If someone in your life is still asking "wait, what's Pie?" — just send them this:
(Pie was the App Store's app of the day this month, and we made a reintroduction reel for the occasion. It explains Pie better than we can in writing. Repost it, story it, DM it — whatever feels right.)
That's the dispatch. Throw the thing this weekend. Tag us if you do.
— The PCC Team ✨ PCC is a creative community for people who bring others together.
Have an idea? reach out to us at [email protected]