First results of our opinion poll and other English city magazines
The reply sheets from last month’s Reader Survey are flooding in to the MUNICH FOUND offices and it is certainly interesting to find out what some of our readers have to say. More business-related information was high up on your wish list and we will certainly be looking into this subject in more detail. Conversely, our readership seems to be getting younger and there were plenty of requests for more youth-related information. Actually, by pure coincidence—how could it be otherwise?—we have a party feature on pages 30 and 31 of this month’s issue. We look forward to hearing how you enjoyed your visit to Funky Kitchen or 4004. We were particularly pleased to read that many of you try out the restaurants and bars that we profile in Taster’s Choice. If you try a place that we have not reviewed and think it is worth covering, either for the excellent food or good service, we will do our best to include the location in a future issue. Probably the biggest surprise to come out of the survey was just how many of you visit the destinations that we write about in our travel feature. Will the train to Leipzig be packed with MUNICH FOUND readers during March? Write and tell us if you visited the city. For all of you singles out there who wanted a special lonely-hearts column in the classified section, we just need enough ads to make it worthwhile, so why not mail or fax us your heart’s desire? Once the deadline for survey submissions has passed, we will evaluate the results and start to introduce additional features over the coming months. In the meantime, we have been taking a look at our “sister” magazines around Germany. Did you know, for example, that the cities Bonn, Cologne and Düsseldorf now have their own “Found” magazine, called Rhine Magazine? The first issue, a double edition, for January and February 2004, covers topics such as the Carnival—a major annual event, especially in Cologne—low-cost airlines are dealt with in the travel feature and wellness is the main topic in the leisure section. It is certainly ambitious to cover three cities, but as the region has a large English-speaking population Rhine Magazine is sure to do well and we wish them the best of luck. For more information visit www.ppverlag.com. Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and Brits living in Berlin are catered to by Ex-Berliner. The magazine, which does not shy away from covering controversial political topics such as the smoking lobby in Germany—there was an excellent article on this subject last fall—also lists entertainment and has travel articles, fashion features and a gay section. The Website, www.ex-berliner.com, will give you an overview of the magazine and has plenty of useful links. The MUNICH FOUND editorial team was recently contacted by a group of journalists from Stuttgart who were looking to establish an English events magazine for Swabia. Although we have not heard any more about this project, if anybody out there has seen a “Stuttgart Found,” we would be interested to hear about it. On the home front we are pleased to report that MUNICH FOUND maintains its position as market leader, though we did recently come across a publication purporting to be an international newspaper for Munich. Unfortunately, the banner headline “Today” belies the “newspaper’s” sporadic appearance—every two months as far as we can tell—in locations around the city. We were, however, flattered to see that they had used one of our cover shots to help improve their circulation. A word of advice to the editors: if you decide to copy our “Find It” section word for word, you really should update the material now and again. Oh, and in case you forgot to call all the numbers on the “Find It” pages before using them, remember that not everyone wants to have their name listed in a publication without prior consultation. We sign off this month with a great big THANK YOU to all our advertisers. You are the lifeblood of our magazine and we appreciate your continued support.