01/08/2026
Sinister Smiles Productions wants to focus, not on headliners and big names, but on local artists who are coming up in their respective scenes. We want to provide a safe platform for artists to share their art with the community. Not only do we want to be diverse in genres of music and media, but with our artists themselves as well.
Why limit ourselves when our community is rich in art?
I see a lot of folks talking about the festival/event bubble. I hear many artists choosing to take a step back from touring. To be completely honest with you, I am excited for everything to pop. The current paradigm has made everyone so disconnected and distant that it has crippled our human need for belonging. Cap italzm has commodified the underground and pulled it from the very people who created it in the first place... and then we wonder why it lacks the same soul and heart we fell in love with.
The spaces that harbor the underground have always been born from a need for belonging and connection. Q***r, POC, and other fringe, marginalized communities built these places. They created new genres as expressions, transmuting pain into togetherness, to feel hope and camaraderie when the outside world ostracized them. This is no longer reflected in the current music and arts scenes... where fast food media and dopamine release is king. It does exist in some few, amazing, places, and the underground very much exists.. you just don't know about it... because they understand that community comes first before visibility or profit.
Everything has a natural ebb and flow. There is a shift happening. Humans are valuing mental health and craving community/connection more than ever. The veil is being pulled back on the systems that were never working for us in the first place. This is a good thing.. although painful and awkward at the moment. The good thing is, there is so much hope for the underground to spring from the ashes of what was.
As someone who created a successful underground community in NYC, selling out every month for 6 years (only to be stopped by covid and me moving), paying everyone well, and still walking home with some $.. I know a few things about building sustainable, underground communities.
One of the most obvious faults I currently see is the focus on headliners and putting folks on pedestals. The underground birthed not from the headliner. It birthed from the people. The needs of the community and the belonging that came with dancing in rhythm together. If more promoters invested the money the put into headliners into their community feeling seen and valued the world would be a better place. I say this as someone who has thrown over 100 successful events, has never lost money (has broken even a few times of course), pays everyone as fair as possible (not paying myself first or at all in the case of breaking even) and has created long-standing underground events. My advice to all the promoters out there that want to survive the bubble... invest in your community. Invest in your people. Make your spaces SAFE and INCLUSIVE. That means booking diversity... not for diversity points but for real care. The scene needs to start representing the folks who built these things in the first place.
Thanks for coming to my ted-talk. Thoughts appreciated and welcome. It's 2026. Let's strive for better.
With love to you,
Your friendly neighborhood Space Cat. 😽
