Meet Cole Pischke of Sofar Sounds Phoenix

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cole Pischke.

Let’s start with Sofar’s Story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
“In 2009, Rafe Offer(co-founder) invited some friends over to a London flat for a low-key, intimate gig. Eight people gathered in the living room to listen to live music performed by friend and musician Dave Alexander. They shared a drink, and sat on the floor, attentively listening to the music. The room was so quiet, you could hear the clock ticking in the background.

Quickly, what started as a hobby in London spread into a global community for artists and audiences to come together in unique and welcoming spaces – with an added element of surprise – to share, discover, create and, hopefully make a friend or find their new favorite band along the way.

Today, Sofar Sounds is a community of thousands of artists, hosts, fans, travelers and more, putting on hundreds of secret, intimate events per month across 447 cities around the world.”

The first show in Phoenix was back in 2015, which was before I started with the company. I initially started as a volunteer in 2017 and as crew came and went I stepped into the role of city leader in 2018. We currently host two shows a month in the Phoenix area which regularly sell out a week prior to the show. It’s nothing comparable to huge cities like Los Angles that host over 20 shows a month, but we are a thriving and growing community.

Has it been a smooth road?
We are in the business of event planning. Nothing ever goes smoothly. It’s all a controlled chaos. We struggle to put on our best show every month. And we think we are doing a pretty good job at it! Again you can’t make everyone happy all the time in this line of work. But we do receive a lot of positive feedback from our guests, hosts, and artists.

Our biggest struggle is keeping everything fresh and maintaining a high standard with our curation of the lineup and hosting location. We are approached by a lot of talented locals and traveling artists, however we can only showcase 6 of them a month. Unfortunately, we have to turn down a lot of submissions and do our best to choose the ones who will really wow an intimate crowd of attentive music lovers.

Another big bottleneck we face is finding new hosting locations. As you know, we do secret pop-up style events, and in doing so we try to host in a fresh new hidden gem each time. We’ve hosted shows on rooftops and in penthouses as well as warehouses and underground speakeasies. So if anyone knows a cool place to host one of these intimate listening parties, please reach out! 🙂

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Sofar Sounds Phoenix story. Tell us more about the business.
Sofar Sounds is a community of creative-minded people who all share a similar passion for music. I think we are doing our mission statement justice by bringing the magic back to music. I think we’ve succeeded in creating a platform for artists to reach an audience they might have never encountered before. We also introducing a crowd of 35+ people to not just new music, but a new place in the city they may have never known about. Last year over 500 artist did tours around the country based on Sofar Sounds shows.

Personally, I am the city leader and curator of Phoenix. At its core, it means I handle the paperwork and a lot of the communication and outreach within the Phoenix area. I do work with an amazing team of creative lads whom of which I could never get along without. I started with Sofar Sounds as a volunteer doing a lot of day-of-show duties and heading the video department and later stepped into the role of city lead. Currently, we are one of the fastest growing cities in North America with over 2000 subscribers in the phoenix area.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I think now more than ever people are turning away from large crowed show halls and bars for a more intimate music experience. I think artists also realize that playing for a small attentive crowd is just as exhilarating as playing for a large room of disengaged patrons. This way they can connect with fans of their music on a more intimate level. It’s like the whole show is a meet and greet.

On the other side of the coin, pop-ups are also in right now. People now more than ever love the idea of exclusivity and being “in the know.” I think we bring this exciting element to the table and people love it. Ten years after Sofar’s debut and I don’t see this trend dying anytime soon.

Pricing:

• We have a “pay what you want” model tickets with a suggested donation of $15 per ticket.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sofarsounds.com/phoenix
• Email: phoenix@sofarsounds.com
• Instagram: @sofarphx
• Facebook: facebook.com/sofarphx

Image Credit:
Austan Stein; Cole Pischke; Andre Hall-Rodriguez

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