We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Francisco Vidales a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Francisco, thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

My mission behind what we do with our company “Offstage” can be divided into two categories.

The first one is being able to curate events where our crowd feels “at home”, from the music that is being played, to the event design, the community, etc. We believe there is a lack of house music being promoted here in our city, which led us to cultivate our own events focusing around house music. Whether it’s 40 or 4,000 people attending our events, the goal remains the same, to continue to push house music in a city where the dance music scene is not as popular while providing an unforgettable experience to our community.

Secondly, we want to put our city at the top of the dance music scene, we want to prove that there is a demand for this here. The way to do that is by brining artists that have never been to Baltimore, throwing events that have never been done. We have been lucky enough to bring some amazing talent to Baltimore, working with them, getting to know them, showing them what Baltimore is about makes our job 100% worth It. This is a process where we’re able to find joy in every step of what we do, from setting up stages, buying artists riders, nonstop promoting, scanning tickets at shows, etc. We love what we do and want that to be reflected to our crowd.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have been a must clover my whole life, growing up in Mexico I was exposed to various genres of music, I remember getting my first CD when I was 8 and listening nonstop. My whole life I had a deep passion for music but never really had a way to express that until I was able to attend music festival at the age of 18, where I was exposed to my first DJ set. At the time I was a fan of hip hop, and deciding to attend a music festival where one of my favorite artists was playing. While walking around the various stages, I came across and artist by the name of Martin Garrix, who to this day is still my favorite artist. I remember walking into the stage area and feeling the energy, that type music was something I had never experienced before. After that, I became obsessed with dance music, which eventually led to buying my first DJ controller and finally having a way to express may love for music.

For years, I was able to constantly work on becoming a better DJ, spent countless hours in my parents basement, every now and then my friends would come over and I would play for them but It wasn’t until after the pandemic that I decided to finally take this out of my basement and play for a real crowd. I began contacting promoters, uploading content to social media and finally someone reached out and asked me to play my first real show at a club opening for Andrew Rayel, at Noto nightclub in Philadelphia. After this, I followed the same recipe, constantly putting content out, creating connections within the scene and was able to obtain more opportunities.

Fast forward a few years, together with my friend Matthew Warner, we were able to start our own company named “Offstage”, where the goal is to push the Baltimore dance music scene as well as cultivating events for our community that have not been done before. We want to put Baltimore at the top of the scene, we aim for events/artists that typically would not happen in our city otherwise. Our primary focus is our crowd, regardless of the quantity, Offstage aims to provide a safe space and unforgettable experience. We have been able to get some success so far and Its all due to ur community who constantly supports the dream as well as our team who put their 100% into this company.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy for us at Offstage has been the uniqueness factor as well as taking advantage of social media popularity and its effects on the music scene.

When we first started, Baltimore had little to no house music events, the bar scene was filled with top 40 hits. There were some shows happening but It was somewhere too far within the city or simply not reachable for most of our crowd. We wanted to bring these events to mainstream spots. we believe house music deserves to be at the center of this. Taking advantage of the lack of events really helped us gain some success within our crowd.

The second factor was, building the company at the right time. We live in an era where social media can take a song and suddenly blow the charts off within a day. This happened within the dance music scene, DJs started to become more popular within the “regular crowd”, names like John Summit, Mau P, Dom Dolla suddenly weren’t just DJs but now mainstream artists. This lead to a higher demand for house music within our local scene. I like to think It was the right time for us to begin this project.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is for me is being able to share this passion with so many people. I have been lucky enough to meet hundreds of people, we could be so different in many ways but music is the one thing that brought us together. I have been lucky enough to com across some of the most important people in my life now through music. It is mind-blowing to look back and realize how much the love for music has impacted my life.

Another rewarding aspect of what I do is being able to provide opportunities for up and coming artists. Being able to now provide advice, support gigs, etc is incredibly rewarding as I always look back to my 18 year old self and reflect on how I could have help that version of me.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @iiscomusic
• Twitter: @iiscomusic
• Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/AKgHJfRTGLtrGzXS8

Image Credits

@filmsbyfelicia