I may not be speaking for everybody, but I think that everyone’s first experience with Sofar is somehow special. It was so good.ī: I’m going to cheat and say two. Emily Chambers played that night and wow, it blew me away. I also really liked the recognition of the fact that we were on aboriginal territories which was really cool. The space was at Mark and Yumi’s and there was a very sharing vibe to that show. I also think the we put on in September was very magical too. The artists that played were also very genuine and pure. It was the end of May, it was warm outside, and it was just such a loving atmosphere. It was on a big rooftop patio thing and it was so magical. K: My most memorable experience was definitely the first show that I was involved in back in May. Image: Sarah Faye Bernstein What was one of your most memorable experiences from Sofar Vancouver, so far?

So we’re as local as those bands can get. I would say that my goal would be to have three out of four bands be local and have something like one touring band per show on average.ī: It also depends on what you define as local in that we’ve had bands from Vancouver Island make the trek over since there isn’t another Sofar show that they can play. Typically, our shows have been pretty local so far. I’m just blow away by how much local talent there is here! Do you always book local artists for every show?Ĭ: We try to book some touring bands our favourite thing to do is to book people that have played other Sofars in other cities because that really ties into how we wanna make the world feel a little smaller. It’s really nice to have that spreadsheet because it’s kind of like a litmus test for us to gauge how we’re doing and honestly, to kind of steal ideas about different genres that I didn’t even know about before.Ī: I can’t speak for everybody, but I don’t think that I was as into the local music scene before as I am now. I try to put a couples hours per week into listening to other cities, especially ones who are just starting out. So if I’m kind of unsure if I want to book someone, I’ll put a couple of their links into this giant spreadsheet where city leaders from other Sofar communities in the world will go to listen and vote for their favourites. We try to make every show really diverse so it’s never just one type of music or genre.Ĭ: What’s nice too is that the Sofar community has this built in international listening committee as well. We’ve also been reached out to by a few artists as well. K: Yeah, we pitch to each other and we go to shows and discover local music that way. So you kind of pitch different bands to each other? Usually it’s like, “Oh we heard these guys play before,” and they would give motivation as to why they think the band would be appropriate for Sofar Sounds. K: It kinda depends actually, sometimes we use a group that we made on Facebook where all the team members put out ideas. Tell us a little bit about how you find the bands that end up playing at Sofar Sounds Vancouver

Is Darragh still involved in Sofar Vancouver?Ĭ: Yeah she is! She was city leading with me for a bit and was doing a lot of band liaison stuff. Then left and we took it on as our baby from there.

It was really exciting because we just had October and November of last year where there was some overlap and had us all working on it together. Steph and Collette responded right away and were like, “That’s crazy that you emailed us because we’re actually leaving. That night, we crafted this perfect email with our resumes saying how we were really excited to get involved. At the time, there were two girls who were spearheading the event here in Vancouver and their names were Steph and Collette.ĭarragh and I, after going to the show, fell in love with. She convinced me to go to this show with her and I kind of went in without knowing anything about it. She had been following Sofar on their YouTube channel since it started in London back in 2010. How did you first find out about Sofar Sounds?Ĭ: I was actually taken to the inaugural show in Vancouver by another team member, Darragh. Kaya: I’m Kaya and I do venue scouting and I do the guestlist and I’ve been MCing at the Sofar Vancouver shows.īen: I’m Ben and I do video stuff for Sofar Vancouver.ĭalton: I’m Dalton I help out in every department of Sofar Vancouver and have been doing some venue scouting stuff as well. Image: Sofar Sounds Vancouver Please introduce yourselvesĬatherine: I’m Catherine and I’m the Sofar Sounds Vancouver city leader.Īdam: I’m Adam and I’m the marketing manager/publicist for Sofar Vancouver.