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On your way out of a Listed event it’s not uncommon to hear, “Of course it was a great time, it’s a Listed party.” What makes people head to Listed events time and time again? To answer this we took Gunita Nagpaul & Simar Singh, the heart of Listed, for a walk through the park. We chatted about the past and how they got to where they are, where they see themselves in the future, and what we can expect from them in 2014.
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What is Listed? Who is at the creative core? Gunita: Listed is a lifestyle brand in dance music. We strive to make quality dance music accessible to people and create memorable experiences and a community around the shared appreciation of music through events. I would say we are best known for our parties. We've done events for a long time in SF, now the Cityfox events in NYC, but also at BPM, Love Parade, Movement and WMC in Miami, the Freaky Tikki being a favorite.
In addition to featuring world-renowned talent in house, tech-house and techno, we strive to create a warm and intimate vibe so that the guests become as important as the headliner. And again, the fundamental key is that the experience is memorable. We have a small, cultivated roster of residents and artists who are at home playing any Listed productions event and we also run a booking agency, which has taken a life of its own, with artists that we really believe in and reflect our values and aesthetic. Ultimately, the mission is to be boutique, quality events over quantity, where every event features a lot of creative ideas for production, concepts, marketing. But, I could not have done this all by myself. I have had many talented contributors that have helped shape, enhance, and grow the brand along the way, and it's been a great journey.
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Simar: Whenever I think of Listed, I think of it as a collective with a mission that was put together by Gunita. She had a vision, is the greatest connector I've ever met, and brought together a group of people who share in her vision and drive it forward. On the productions side, Gunita is the creative lead, I work on operations and round out creativity, and we work closely on just about everything so those lines are pretty blurred. But, people who have worked on Listed in the past, like her former partner Jonathan Gavenda, were instrumental in creating what it is today. In addition, our very talented resident artists are also key members, reflect and define our sound, aesthetic, and values, and are very actively involved. They currently include Atish, Dory, Hoj, Mark Slee, Mike Khoury, Naveen G, and Nikita. I know the term "family" is frequently used to describe a closely knit group of friends, but it very accurately describes our crew (though Gunita and I are also first cousins, so I guess it's literally accurate there). In the music world and personally, we share many interests, opinions, can turn to one another for guidance, advice and help, rely on one another, we know each others' foibles and flaws and can sometimes drive each other nuts or be dramatic with one another, but at the end of the day, we're tied together. So while Gunita and I are pushing things forward on the production side by creating events and opening doors for our artists, it's such a dynamic and symbiotic relationship that Listed wouldn't exist as it does but for our artists as well as many other close friends who have joined us along the way. As Gunita said, it's about community first. And it's damn fun.
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What is the story behind Listed? How did it come about and how did you become involved? Gunita: I would pretty much call myself an old school raver from the 90's as the dance music love affair started in university. After visiting San Francisco and spending a summer there, I found myself drawn to its energy and eventually relocated there for work. I found the thriving dance music scene there piqued my interest further, which led me to creating a list (more a blog) at the time that people subscribed to find out the happenings going on in the city. This then grew into me throwing parties and the next thing I knew I was producing a full blown event with Lee Burridge during Love Parade Weekend in San Francisco.
After throwing my first event, I became more motivated in my desire to continue to create these memorable experiences for people. The idea of developing the Listed brand further into something viable and of quality can be attributed to a combination of experiences I have had over the years. San Francisco's thriving scene and good vibes, the Burning Man Festival and also very specific artists such as Spesh, Scott Carrelli, Lee Burridge, Desyn Masiello and Danny Howells and too many more to count really got me inspired to delve further into dance music. The idea of being Listed and dance music go hand in hand so naming the brand Listed was somewhat perfect. Our idea of being "Listed" was not so exclusive but that anyone could be on our list if they chose to get Listed.
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Simar: New Years 2009/10, I had a black tie wedding in the Upper East Side. However, Gunita convinced me come to Santos Party House afterwards where Lee Burridge and Mike Khoury were playing all night. So I showed up in a tuxedo, didn't really know anyone that well, and I remember walking into Dunkin Donuts at 7am asking myself "what the f*** just happened?" It was incredible. I'd gone to parties before, had attended Burning Man, but that was a seminal moment for me. I started going to more and more events, making friends, attending festivals, really getting into and learning the music, developing my own taste and aesthetic, and also closely observing and analyzing why some events were "better" than others, often engaging in long conversations with similarly minded over-analytical friends to break things down to understand. At the end of the day, Gunita's events were always my favorites and I could tell you exactly why. What she was doing intuitively, I was analyzing as a student while also coming up with my own ideas, and I really wanted to help push her vision forward. I am formerly a corporate lawyer but quit in August 2011 to launch my own venture. She'd been staying with me for a bit and I was already giving her my thoughts and helping hand - we had a conversation and I formally came aboard to be her partner.
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When people think of the Listed brand, what do you want people to think about? Gunita: The idea is that a Listed event is an event they don't want to miss, no matter the destination - quality, consistency in quality, and that we strive to create something epic or even legendary. If people don't walk away thinking it was amazing, we haven't done our job. I think we've demonstrated this at Tikki and the Victor Hotel Parties in Miami, VAS events in Chicago, Love Parade Floats and events at the Compound and Endup, Parties with Lee Burridge aka LoveLee and Get Weird, PLAY Monthly Parties, and collaborations with BPM in Mexico and Circoloco in Detroit.
Simar: What Gunita said. Everything has to be quality and top notch, or we're not going to do it. When I came aboard, I pushed to explore certain opportunities, but Gunita resisted without too much an explanation that made any sense to me (that still happens sometimes). It was annoying, but I realized later it's a question of never settling - she'd rather not do something at all than something that doesn't meet the standards that's defined the Listed brand, and we're now generally on the same page. If you could see the sheer number of emails or texts that we exchange over every last detail for an event, it's ridiculous, but that’s what makes Listed what it is.
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Your home base is out of San Francisco, for those who haven’t had the chance to check out your events out there, what do you feel makes it unique? Gunita: The West Coast and in particular the San Francisco vibe in general lend to our events being quite unique and diverse. People just get into it there and lack much of the boundaries you find elsewhere in the states. General openness of the culture, liberal ideas permeating and the Bay Area being an epicenter for innovation and technology, I think just allows for more interesting parties and events.
Simar: I'm relatively new to this and don't spend too much time out west, but having attended a bunch of events in SF and NYC the last few years, it makes perfect sense that Listed was born and bred out of SF (and Burning Man, I'm surprised Gunita hasn't mentioned that). I think SF events, including Listed events, reflect the community there, which seems so closely knit while still being so varied, and ultimately quirky. I think Listed events in SF apply our values within that really unique music community, and they're a ton of fun.
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You have been working closely with Zurich’s Cityfox, how did this come about? How do you feel it has been working out? Gunita: We have a bit of history of throwing parties at WMC in Miami for about 7 years and we always tried to highlight labels and artists we thought were a bit more underground and cutting edge. We decided in 2011 to showcase the Cityfox label at one of our Miami showcases along with the Diynamic imprint hence starting the beginning our relationship with the label.
The partnership has been a learning experience but I think we can agree has been nothing short of amazing because we are on the same page. We both agree on how important the experience is for the guests and the overall quality of the event. We also realized that this type of collaboration might not reap financial success right now but through hard work and team effort that the reward will eventually come.
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Simar: Ah, Cityfox. I first got a real sense of their sound when they played for BLK|Market in the spring of 2011, and when we were deciding what label to feature at BPM in January 2012. They were my first choice, Gunita agreed, and we made it happen. From there, they wanted to do big things in NYC, conversations happened (at Burning Man? hard to remember) and more than anything, it was a meeting of the minds. As Gunita mentioned, we share the same values, primarily being driven by creating truly incredible experiences for the audience, thinking long term to build something amazing, and the Listed and Cityfox sounds go hand in hand. I have so much respect for those guys; I often refer to Billy, their creative head, as a "mad genius" and I love working closely with Ben, Martin, Philipp and the experts they bring over for events. Everyone associated with them is just quality and total professionals, which is kind of rare. Also, our expertise and roles really compliment each other. While everything overlaps a bit, they're brilliant on the production, creative and logistical sides, and we mainly focus on brand strategy and voice, promotion and communication. Our first event in November 2012 is still my favorite, the culmination of months of work, and we somehow pulled off not only creating an incredible production but drawing in over 1,500 people to join the fun, this when neither of us were really well known or established in NYC. We really look forward to continuing to work together and building events that are even more amazing.
Aside from San Francisco, you have been throwing parties mainly in America; do you have any plans to bring your brand into more international markets? Gunita: We have thought quite a bit about this - bringing our parties to different festivals as well as hosting them outside of the states and Mexico. To be quite honest, I enjoy what we have going on in North America and am quite content to continue to expand upon our great scene!
Simar: There's so much to do here I haven't even given it a thought.
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As you look to take your brand & artists into the future, what's the growth strategy you're employing? Are you looking to introduce any new talent into the Listed family? Gunita: We are looking to expand the bookings portion of our business in North America and it is so important that the artists you showcase and take on to your roster are artists you truly believe in. I myself find it very hard to sell an artist that I don't fully get excited about. The amount of energy and efforts it takes to build artists up is a process in the states so it is super important that whomever we take on we know has that talent but is also hungry and excited to play this market.
Simar: We always keep an eye out for talent. Outside of the bookings roster, introducing talent within the Listed family, our collective, is something that just happens organically.
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How about a Listed imprint? You are filled with some extremely talented artists, any thoughts on expanding operations outside of events & bookings? Gunita: A label imprint has always been in the back of our minds, and even a fashion/clothing line. We are not quite there yet as that requires good amount of planning and resources, but again the idea of growing Listed beyond what we currently are defined as is definitely possibility.
Simar: I can't believe I'm actually typing these words, but to quote Gunita, "if it's meant to be it will be." I qualify that only with - it's hard for us to focus on that right now as we have our hands pretty full at the moment, but are always looking at possibilities and opportunities, and who knows what can happen tomorrow.
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What can we expect from you in the first half of 2014, any parties or events that are exciting you? Gunita: We just celebrated the one Year Anniversary of our PLAY party, which is a concept we recently developed with SO & SO creative group (who also created the look and feel for the All Day I Dream brand). The event is thrown at the legendary Endup Club but we expect more PLAY parties to be happening in the future beyond just SF. We are starting our year by hosting our annual showcase at the BPM festival on January 9th and look forward to another year of throwing events in Miami during WMC along with continuing to work with Cityfox on more events though out the year.
Simar: In addition to continuing what we've worked on for years, as Gunita has mentioned, I'm really looking forward to creating more amazing events with the Cityfox crew in NYC (2014 will be good) and working with an awesome collective of people to continue pushing things forward.
Photos courtesy of BSK Photo, Cheyenne Bosco, Dean T McColl & Richard Henry Thomas
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