Always Welcome. Open for All

Why Charlotte magazine and Where Charlotte magazine are proud to participate in the Always Welcome campaign

AS SOON as we saw the Always Welcome campaign, my colleague Mike Andrea and I knew we wanted to participate. Look for the campaign here on our site, in Charlotte magazine, and in our sister publication Where Charlotte (which is distributed in local hotels). The words themselves contain a powerful message, and the way the colors blend and the letters come together, overlapping even, represent the way this community operates.

At Charlotte  and Where Charlotte magazines, we are proud to have been serving the residents of and visitors to this city for more than 70 years combined. Our readers and our staff are all types of people from all types of places. We serve our advertisers by delivering them an active, engaged audience of all Charlotteans. Our readers love us and keep coming back to us because we tell the whole Charlotte story.

And the whole Charlotte story is this: Always Welcome. Open for All. It’s not just a campaign. It represents who we are—the best version of ourself as a city. Charlotte has been one of the country’s fastest growing cities for two decades because we welcome anyone who wants to come here. Charlotte is one of America’s best places to do business because we support anyone who wants to set up shop here. This city is great because if you have an idea to make this place better, someone will listen.

Whenever our city has faced a challenge, our people have come together to address it. We are not a city without flaws. But we try to fix them. Since this past spring, our city has taken an economic and public relations hit because our politicians have conflicting ideas about who can use which bathroom. We’ll leave the politics to the politicians, and we trust that love is stronger than fear. 

In the meantime, we will repeat, to anyone who will listen and even those not yet ready to hear it: Always Welcome; Open for All. And we will shout it out, not because it’s good for business, but because it is the right thing to do. 

Sincerely,

Richard Thurmond, Publisher, Charlotte magazine

Mike Andrea, Publisher, Where Charlotte magazine