The Challenge: How can we give a middle finger to everything that sucks about the music industry?
The Solution: Throw the coolest party at the CMJ industry festival without the corporate nerds at CMJ touching it at all.
The Challenge: How can we give a middle finger to everything that sucks about the music industry?
The Solution: Throw the coolest party at the CMJ industry festival without the corporate nerds at CMJ touching it at all.
The late CMJ was charging hundreds for festival badges to shows filled with disengaged music industry suits, all while underpaying artists themselves. We thought that was really lame and resolved to show them up by crashing their programming.
We timed our party during a gap in the festival’s programming, and produced it at a non-traditional venue that made our event unmissable—a shuttered car wash in Brooklyn.
We curated a lineup of artists on the verge of breaking out, catering to the local music scene as well as out-of-towner attendees. Most of these artists weren’t able to sell out a small venue, but we quickly sold more than 1,000 tickets.
The AdHoc Car Wash earned coverage from the New Yorker, Timeout, NME, and Rolling Stone among others. Later, Village Voice dubbed us NYC’s “Best Promoter”, and New York Magazine called it “the year’s most creative DIY show” featuring the event in their year-end feature “Reasons To Love New York”.
We accomplished all of this without a brand sponsor.
YEAR
October 2015
OUR ROLE
Creative, Booking, Promotion, and Marketing
TEAM/PROJECT CREDITS
Producer: Ric Leichtung
Photos: Edwina Hay
