We were lucky to catch up with Diy Raves recently and have shared our conversation below.

DIY RAVES, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

DIY Raves was co-founded in Los Angeles through a partnership between DJ “IKU” (Andy Rivera) and his manager Roy Ng. Andy was a college dropout who only recently started to pursue his career in producing and mixing music. Within the last year alone, he has amassed over 170,000 streams on his viral song “Nightvision” and has been booked at over 20 shows while operating independently from any labels or collectives. He closed for Softest Hard in San Francisco and even headlined his own show at the Yost Theater for Peaking Duck. His popularity grew remarkly fast, but it was not always sunshine and rainbows.

Managing an artist that was just starting out his DJ career was no simple task. IKU easily had the talent, but it was difficult to get big venues or production companies to take a risk on him. Although he was still being booked for shows, it was not as consistent as we preferred. We knew that in this industry, many opportunities are gatetkept and negotiated behind closed doors, making it extremely hard for newer creatives to jumpstart their careers. Since IKU was not signed or did not attend any music schools, we needed to generate these opportunities through our own marketing and networking efforts. Hence, we started DIY Raves, or Do-It-Yourself Raves, to provide him with frequent opportunities of his own. Because if nobody wants to book an up-and-coming artist that is ambitious and talented, we’ll just do it ourselves.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

DIY Raves’ mission is to provide a nostalgic and unique experience that ravers once felt before it was over commercialized in the current day and age. Raves used to be underground and were held in the most unconventional locations such as abandoned buildings for the genuine music lovers. Nowadays, these events are overpriced and are typically hosted at the same venues and clubs over and over and over again…

For all the ravers, music lovers, and partygoers who are tired of the same old warehouse or club spaces and want to try something new again, we’re here for you. Anyone can just book a space and provide a DJ with over-the-top production, but was it memorable or something different that you haven’t attended 100 times already? Our focus is to curate an entire experience, whether it be supporting a unique theme or venue. We’ve already thrown a rave at a hotpot restaurant, a boba lounge, an art gallery, and even at a Chinese lantern festival. We enjoy working with restaurants and other businesses to collaborate events together. With our production quality and ideas, we can adjust to any environment instead of removing its unique atmosphere. Because of our low ticket costs and stacked lineup of local talents, we have sold out every event we have hosted and are fortunate we have provided a safe space for over thousands of attendees across our events to vibe and remember forever!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of DIY Raves is knowing we are making a positive and innovative impact amongst the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) community. Although our sold out shows are already a good indication, it is exponentially more fulfilling to have received lots of amazing feedback, from both new and returning attendees, who praise us for events we curate. We love to do this for the people and we will continue to do so, and we promise to deliver an experience of the highest quality!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

It’s all about consistency! Some of our videos go viral and some do not. If we were demotivated every time a video or post did not go as expected, we would not made it to this point. Before every event, we would post a promo video letting the audience know what to expect at our shows. After our events, we would always post a recap and highlight the cool features of our shows! Check out @diyraves on Instagram to know what we are talking about!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://purpleperfection19.wixsite.com/purple-parties
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diyraves/
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/eyeku