SoFar Sounds,
Imagine seeing a show with no idea who is playing in a venue that you don’t know about until two days before the event. Welcome to Sofar Sounds. SoFar, which originated in England in 2009, is now in over 350 cities worldwide each month.
SoFar Sounds is defines itself as a global community for artists and audiences to come together in unique spaces with an added element of surprise..
SoFar Sounds Waterloo’s secret pop-up concerts began in the fall of 2017 at Ten Thousands Villages in uptown Waterloo. Artists included indie folksinger Matthew Wittmann of the Mountain and the Wood, The Funga Drummers, and Toronto singer/multidisciplinary artist Belinda Corpuz. Other shows have included London, Ont.’s alt-rock indie singer Poesy at One King North in Waterloo, plus the electronica of local duo Binary Forest and the altrock of Markham’s Rikashay who performed at 44 Gaukel. .
The most recent SoFar show was held in tech-hub Terminal, in downtown Kitchener, with host Nabil Fahel.
Artists on the bill included Hamilton indie rockers The Bandicoots, Toronto’s spoken word/soul singer Aaron Ridge, and sitarist Anwar Khurshid with his band Sitar Fusion. Khurshid’s sitar music was featured in Oscar-winning movie “Life of Pi.”
SoFar Waterloo city lead Amit Mehta got involved from going out to SoFar shows in Toronto. He is also a startup coach/entrepreneur/events consultant at UW.
“I think I have been to 40-something shows there,” notes Mehta, who sat down to chat after the latest pop-up show. “John, the Toronto city lead, said ‘why aren’t we starting a SoFar in Kitchener-Waterloo?’”
“Our first show was in September of 2017. Five shows in and we have grown extremely quickly,” he says, adding his 16-member team is a volunteer mix of students, young adults and some older working professionals.
Be it a tech hub, living room, beach, a moving train, the middle of a race track, or a retail shop, SoFar is a collective intimate experience, that brings artist and audience closer together.
Concertgoers can apply in the SoFar lottery for tickets online up to five days before the event, unless tickets sell out. Selected attendees are notified via email.
In some cities, attendees can bring up to five friends, or a guest. Coming solo is also encouraged.
“SoFar is not just about the music. It is about creating community,” explains Mehta. “For the guests it is twofold; it is not just about experiencing new music, it is also about experiencing these new spaces. It is a space that you could never get access to or a space that you would never see a concert in again.
Audience capacity depends on the venue size. Mehta says the goal of SoFar is to remain intimate. Terminal’s show was the largest yet, with 150 attendees confirmed, out of the “300-plus” that applied. “We hand-pick the audience for each show to ensure we have a diverse demographic of people that will mix and mingle.”
“This was out kickoff for 2018 and it was let’s go big,” he explains. “Really, our scalability is not increasing the number of people at each show, it is increasing the number of shows. When you have 60 to 100 people max in a small venue sitting on the ground that’s when they can become friends and that’s when you really grow community,” he adds. “It is a level of exclusivity that you get to experience.”
Mehta’s team vets all of the artists who also have to apply online. The team also has scouts who will recommend artists, who also go through the vetting process. Artists also recommend other artists. Mehta says the singer Richard Garvey, who performed at SoFar and books Together We’re Bitter (TWB) shows, is now working with his team.
Mehta encourages these sorts of collaborations. He also says more people are now applying to host.
“I think because they have seen what is going on Kitchener-Waterloo. But “so far” it has been me going out and trying to get people to give up their space for the night,” adds Mehta with a laugh.
“We want the community to really rally behind this — not just SoFar Sounds but paying more attention to the arts. We need more creativity in the tech world. Tech will help influence how arts and culture grows in Kitchener-Waterloo. The community at large also needs to pay more attention to what artists are doing in KitchenerWaterloo.” he says.
There was also another very noticeable SoFar show element — minimum cellphone activity, and a very quiet attentive audience.
“That is a product of the intimacy,” notes Mehta. “When you have everyone sitting on the ground as opposed to sitting around tables with food and drinks you are there for the music and nothing else.”