Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dennis-Michael Broussard. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Dennis-Michael, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

The transition of going to pop culture events and conventions was a slow and gradual evolution, but certainly an inevitable process. I had already been producing events for corporations and nonprofits for a while, but I was slowly moving to aligning my entrepreneurial proclivity with a growing area of interest for me – which was pop culture and pop culture events. It was a combination of factors that influenced this; a lack of (or rather, very few) options in San Diego, in which there was a market, and a growing, hungry audience, yet not much catering to them, other than the granddaddy of all pop culture events, San Diego Comic Con; hearing friends and friends of friends constantly say that they’re always leaving San Diego for Anaheim, Los Angeles, or other cities just to attend something fun and cool; along with my increasing interest and awareness in the general pop culture scene; these things were all telling me that there was an opportunity to align my experience, skill set, network, and area of personal interest and create something fun and cool.

The event that started it all for us was Fangaea (fan-JEE-uh), which was meant to be a general fandom pop culture event. This started as a conversation in a cafe in 2016, and soon evolved into something we were fully able to execute by 2018. The first year was respectably attended, but far fewer people than my ambition expected actually attended the event. Despite the low registration numbers, we persisted with a second year, to great success, and then the world ended (aka Covid). That certainly wasn’t helpful in the event’s growth momentum.

It took a couple of years before we were able to bring back Fangaea, but after gaining some momentum back, we then launched San Diego Anime Con (an anime themed convention, AnimeLand (and outdoor anime themed street fair and festival), Scream Diego (a Halloween and horror themed convention), HM (our adult anime themed convention), and most recently, AniPop (our north County San Diego anime convention). It was a little bananas to start all of these new pop culture events within 18 months, instead of allowing them to grow before undertaking a new creation, but the growing pains were gonna happen anyway, so I thought we might as well get them all out of the way. (Disclaimer, I do not recommend doing anything this way).

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

To put it most simply, I just tell people I produce events. The first and predictably common question I get is “what kind of events?” And I used to generically list the types of events out, but now I just say, “Pop culture conventions.”

I didn’t plan on getting into events. It was just a natural progression for me from college and graduate school(s), where many classes were “project based,” where there was a deliverable that had a deadline…events to me are projects – just bigger ones than I ever had to do in school. But I didn’t know I could make a career out of it until people started paying me. I was like, “What? You want to pay me?”

So backing up for a moment, when I first moved to San Diego from New Orleans, I didn’t know anyone or have a network or friends, so I started volunteering for organizations and their fundraisers or other events. I was doing that quite often, that along with my work based efforts in grad school, I had a certain knack for the organizational process in event production and planning. I was taking on roles of increasing responsibility and impact, which had key folks in different places and positions start paying attention to me – I was someone who was showing up, getting things done, communicating, being accountable, and stepping up. Unsurprisingly, those attributes made people want me to continue being a part of their event – and those qualities tend to be what I look for in others who join my team.

The events my team and I focus on now are primarily pop culture conventions, ranging from anime to horror and Halloween, and these arose from seeing a growing desire for these types of events as well as an opportunity to create something to fulfill that unmet need. The anime conventions we created were both well received and people were thankful that we created something focused on their specific area of interest and something family friendly!

We’re proud of creating a vast array of events, things that represent what a lot of people are into, events that create memories and experiences for people, events that create opportunities for people’s businesses or side hustles, events that connect people of similar interests, where they can meet other like-minded people. And we have fun while doing it, because we’re fans of the things we are creating! Personally, I am a horror fiend and have an unhealthy addiction to horror movies. Most of my team are fans of anime. So doing the work doesn’t always feel like it’s work!

Have you ever had to pivot?

I have been producing events for a bit now, and a pivot I decided to take was to steer away from focusing on ethnic and cultural events to instead focus on pop culture events. It wasn’t something I necessarily needed to do, but with the direction I was taking personally and with just how it made more business sense, it was something I wanted to do.

I had been very active in the Asian community in San Diego, from the businesses, cultural organizations, and ethnic based nonprofits, I was really involved. I even created quite a few events that became well-known in and out of the Asian community in San Diego, including the Asian Cultural Festival, the San Diego Ramen Festival, the Filipino Sun Festival, and others. As time was passing, I wanted to make a shift from that focus to a more pop culture focused approach in creating events. As I recounted previously, it started with a general pop culture convention called Fangaea (fan-JEE-uh), my first venture in that realm – and again, it was created because San Diego has such a strong pop culture community, yet, outside of San Diego Comic Con, there were only a handful of pop culture events – and I kept hearing from friends and friends of friends about how people kept having to go to Los Angeles, Long Beach, Anaheim, or wherever just to go to something fun and cool.

My pivot could be ascribed to two main events – first, recognizing the lack of events and the hunger for those events, and second, my own personal interest and desire to shift to those types of events instead of what I had been doing for years.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The lesson I had to unlearn and relearn, well, it was both easy and difficult. Easy to recognize and acknowledge, but difficult to change. And that was thinking I could do all the work myself…that I could accomplish everything I wanted to on my own terms and in my own way.

And that type of foolishness won’t last in any endeavor, in any industry. I learned that in order to expand and grow, I needed a team…I needed to delegate…I needed to learn to let go and trust others. I’d never be able to scale up without first accepting that I cannot do everything on my own – and then learn to let go and delegate.

Sometimes, it’s still difficult to let go of things, but if someone wants to operate at a higher level and continue to grow, then they gotta let go and trust others.

The only reason we’ve been able to create so many pop culture events is because of that lesson. It’s why we’ve been able to create events that people look forward to, events that create memories for friends and families to share forever, and events that just bring people joy.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://silkroadproductions.us
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/silkroadproductions
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dennismichaelbroussard
• Twitter: https://x.com/dennismichaelSD