CLIQ Social Club - a new social initiative by Academy Founders Java & Hetal Joshi

A new social venture by the power couple Java & Hetal Joshi to help raise funds to support and promote creative & performing arts. 

Earlier this year the Academy created a new performance center and banquet hall that is now fully equipped with a full size stage, 20,000 Watts concert hall sound system, a 20 feet LED Video wall powered by BSL and an auditorium with capacity of 250-400 depending on the

seating configuration and best in class acoustics designed by sound & light professionals. This performance and event space is now available for all community members to rent and leverage for their private events - be it a vocal concert or a wedding or a birthday party the venue can accommodate all at their 18,000 square feet facility with ample parking in Burlington, MA.

Learning from Covid shut down they realized that the Academy cannot just sustain on revenue from classes. So they created this rental space at the academy that serves as an alternative source of revenue that can be used to fund Academy operations and continue to serve the community through art education at Academy. When people rent space at the Academy they in turn support the school and art education.

“What we learnt during Covid is that we can’t just rely on classes to sustain and continue to serve the community through Art education at Academy… we have to find alternative sources or revenue that allow us to support and sustain the arts… so we invested in creating a hall & spaces that can be rented for events - and when you rent our space - you are essentially helping the school and supporting art education” said Java Joshi.

Founders of Academy of Creative Arts, Java & Hetal Joshi have created a new entity called CLIQ Social Club. The purpose behind CLIQ Social Club is very unique. CLIQ is focused on creating a social platform for emerging artists through its Open Mic Nights to encourage Stand-up comedy, poetry, storytelling & singing. Just like Academy focuses on kids, CLIQ focuses on creating a social group of like minded people who want to explore their creative talents and/or simply come together and socialize without any pressures of being competitive or judged. Just like food & water - socializing is a human need required for sanity which also needs to be satisfied and CLIQ does exactly that by serving & meeting the social needs of adults and all community members. 

“Our plan to get the community together for social events is also along the same lines - when folks come and enjoy these social events - they are also doing something good in supporting the school - so we can keep the fees and overheads low, subsidize arts education and even create scholarship opportunities for students wanting to pursue arts as their career choices… We have a 501(c)3 non profit determination - but rather than regular means of raising funds we are creating value driven opportunities that allow the community to support the school while always getting value in return… whether through use of space for your event or through social club activities... We plan to make the academy a one stop shop for education and social needs…” said Hetal Joshi. 

CLIQ Social club hosted their first Valentine Bash in Feb 2020 just before Covid hit and recently hosted an Open Mic & Karaoke Night both these events were a resounding success. Taking a cue from that CLIQ now plans host regular social events that are focused on promoting stand-up comedy, poetry, storytelling and karaoke/singing - Initially every other month and each theme could have a focus every month i.e. one social only focused on encouraging the members to present/perform stand-up comedy and another one just focused on poetry etc. 

Upcoming CLIQ Social club events are: Valentine Bash - Bollywood Club night in collaboration with DJ Yogz - BSL on Feb 11, 2023 from 8.30pm onwards (Tickets info here) and Urban Gujarati Stand-up comedy event - Jati Rehje by Manan Desai & Mistry Solved by Chirayu Mistry from The Comedy Factory (Tickets info here).

“Hope we continue to get the same love and support  for CLIQ Social Club from our New England community as we got for the Academy of Creative Arts - Thank you for allowing us to be the medium bringing our community and the arts together” said Founders Java & Hetal Joshi.

CLIQ Social Club event calendar for the events can be found here:

https://academyofcreativearts.com/cliqsocialclub-events.