LIGHT!, The North American ELO Fan Club
UPDATED
November, 2018
LIGHT! IS NO LONGER AN ACTIVE FAN CLUB! (But, read on...)
From Steve Rifkin, the former coodinator of LIGHT...
LIGHT! was an ELO/Jeff Lynne/ELO Part 2/Orchestra/Traveling Wilburys/The Move/The Idle Race/related artists fan club that ran from the early 1990s through the early 2000s. The club's main form of communication were its newsletters called LIGHT!Reading. The club's newsletters were full of ELO-related news, reviews, and member submissions. The club also held fan get-togethers on the East Coast and in the Mid West. We called these LIGHT!Fests, and they were a fun-filled weekend of meeting with other fans, checking out the rare ELO-related audio and video, and getting to see, up-close, the rarest of the rare ELO-related memorabilia.
In the mid-2000s, the Internet grew, and there became an abundance of ELO-related online groups. It didn't seem like a paper-based fan club would fit into these modern times. And in the past 10 years, Facebook appeared and many ELO-related Facebook groups sprung up there which seemed to solidify the notion that online was the way to go. So, LIGHT! has been inactive for some time now.
Although it would be great to reactivate the club sometime and have paper-based newsletters again, I'm not sure we'd have enough interested people. And, it takes a lot of work to create the newsletters, so I'm not sure I could do it all myself. In the old days, members would submit articles, but in the waning days of LIGHT!, less and less members contributed, as they were moving to posting on the Internet. But if enough people want to entertain putting it back into action sometime, let me know.
What I think was something that is missed nowadays are the LIGHT!Fest get-togethers. They were so much fun! I've been asked over the past several years about putting one together again. I might entertain that again sometime, once some logistics could be worked out.
And finally, we all know that even in 2018 (as I write this), ELO is big! Really BIG! Jeff Lynne is back! Jeff Lynne's ELO is selling out arenas. Jeff has even released several albums in recent years. ELO even made it into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame! The band called The Orchestra (former members of ELO and ELO Part 2) continues to tour "all over the world". In just this past year, I've seen Jeff Lynne's ELO in concert, as well as two Orchestra concerts. Wow!
It's a great time to be an ELO fan. Whether you're in a fan club, or monitor an online ELO forums (like Showdown -- an excellent forum hosted by Lynn Hoskins), or are a member of an ELO fan group on Facebook, there's so much out there to keep us as happy ELO fans!
Oh, and one more thing... if I get productive enough sometime, I might reactivate some of the news links and concert update links we used to have on this site. Don't hold your breath, but you never know!
Thanks for reading!
Steve Rifkin, Coordinator (well, back in the day) of LIGHT!, the North American ELO Fan Club
September, 2018
Click for The LIGHT! Flier used to advertise the club at events and concerts
Since it's been so many years since the club went inactive, we've decided to put the copies of LIGHT!Reading online for your enjoyment. We're in the process of scanning them and should be posting them here in the near future. So, check back soon. The LIGHT!Reading Newsletters