More than 200 people gathered at One ÂWarwick Park Hotel last week to celebrate the 100th edition of So Tunbridge Wells magazine – the sister publication to this newspaper.
Since the glossy, upmarket monthly was launched in 2008 it has carried some four million words across 17,000 editorial pages.
The trademark feature has always been the celebrity cover picture, from supermodel Kate Moss in the opening issue to the more recent cover of actor Tom Hiddleston.
Today there are also two other monthlies in So Sevenoaks and So Wealden. Between them the three titles have a total monthly readership of 65,000.
The magazines are published by One Media, whose Editorial Director Richard Moore told guests at the party: “So has established itself over the years as an integral part of the town’s media landscape.”
He paid tribute to ‘the outstanding work’ done by former Editor Jane Connolly, current Editor Charlie Bond and Head of Design Rowena Cremer-Price in producing local magazines comparable to national titles in terms of style, tone and content.
“It is fair to say that without So magazine there would probably be no Times of Tunbridge Wells newspaper or Times of Tonbridge. The magazine enabled us to establish a media presence in the town from which to launch the newspapers,” he added.
“We launched So magazine during a recession and defied all the critics by making it a huge success. The same is happening with our newspapers.
“As free publications we have only been able to do this because of the support of our advertisers and our readers, and for that support we will always be deeply grateful.”
