Guides
How to deal with competitors who call the cops
A rival collective called the cops on our free events because we were drawing crowds across the street from their...
Category
Guides
Guides
How to run a rave chapter in another city
SLIST started in Mexico City before it existed in New York. The expansion from CDMX to NYC — and the...
Guides
How to structure a co-promotion deal
Co-promotions are the fastest way to scale an event beyond what your budget and audience can reach alone. They’re also...
Guides
How to survive a police raid
At the 37th event, two hours in, NYPD and FDNY shut it down. Arrested alongside a staff member who was...
Guides
Liquor licensing for event promoters
Selling alcohol at raves without a liquor license is the single biggest legal exposure for event promoters. Every workaround has...
Guides
Curation as product
Curation is not a playlist. It’s a product discipline. The lineup is the product. The brand is the trust that...
Guides
Flyer design for underground events
The flyer is the first impression of your event. In underground culture, it’s also a statement of intent. A bad...
Guides
Hardware live sets as programming differentiator
Every underground lineup in NYC looks the same: eight DJs playing CDJs for an hour each. The programming blurs together....
Guides
How to add vendors to your event
Events that offer only music are leaving money on the table. Adding vendors — clothing, art, tattoos, food — transforms...
Guides
Physical flyer distribution
Digital marketing is the default. Everyone runs Instagram ads, everyone has an SMS list, everyone is optimizing their Meta pixel....
Guides
Anti-FOMO design
Most event marketing is built on manufactured urgency. Countdown timers. “Selling out fast” overlays. Tier pricing designed to create panic....
Guides
Bar operations at raves
Bar revenue is the number that determines whether a venue invites you back. Not ticket sales, not Instagram impressions, not...
Guides
DM outreach for events
DM outreach is the highest-conversion marketing channel for underground events, and also the one most promoters execute poorly. The difference...
Guides
Door staff management
Door staff is the first and last impression of your event. A bad door experience — slow lines, rude bouncers,...
Guides
How to survive 5 cancel campaigns
Five cancel campaigns in two years. Discord servers dedicated to destroying the brand. Memes of the founder on the floor...
Guides
Why we donate 10% of every event to charity
We donate 5% of ticket profits after $1,500 in ad spend to SafeRaveNYC, a harm reduction nonprofit. We have also...
Guides
How to negotiate with venues when you have nothing
Every venue negotiation I’ve done started from a position of having nothing. No track record at the venue. No guaranteed...
Guides
What to expect at your first techno event
If you’ve never been to a techno event, the unknown is the hardest part. Not the music, not the crowd,...
Guides
Why Thursday events are worth losing money on
Thursday events do not make money. That is by design. We run them at a loss because the strategic value...
Guides
How we built a 9,000-person SMS list
The SMS list started at zero in early 2024. By January 2026, it was over 9,000 contacts — past attendees,...
Guides
Payment delays, bank freezes
Payment processing issues will hit you at the worst possible time. Not when business is slow and you can absorb...
Guides
The guest list growth hack
Guest lists are not freebies. They’re the most effective growth mechanism in event promotion — if you structure them as...
Guides
The WordPress tech stack
Running an event brand on WordPress sounds like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Every other promoter is on Squarespace,...
Guides
Ticketing platform showdown
We have used four ticketing platforms across 37+ events. Each one taught us something about conversion rates, data ownership, audience...
Guides
What headliner DJs actually cost
DJ fees are the most opaque part of event budgets. Every promoter guesses, every DJ inflates, and nobody publishes actual...
Guides
WhatsApp community governance
WhatsApp communities were the foundation of everything we built in Mexico City. At peak, we managed a 1,800-person announcement group,...
Guides
Converting competitors’ audiences
Your competitors have audiences that already care about the same music you promote. Those people are pre-qualified — they attend...
Guides
Dancefloor dynamics: gender ratio
Nobody in the underground scene wants to talk about gender ratio on the dancefloor. It sounds like nightclub marketing from...
Guides
How to book DJs when you have no reputation
Nobody wants to play for a promoter with zero events, zero followers, and zero budget. This is the cold start...
Guides
How to evaluate a venue for underground events
A venue can make or destroy an event before the first DJ plugs in. After running shows at warehouses, hotel...
Guides
Brand building for dark culture
Dark culture is not a genre. It is a mood constraint that allows genre flexibility while maintaining identity coherence. We...
Guides
Community over clout: why email lists beat Instagram
Instagram followers is the worst metric to obsess over. We learned this the hard way when Meta permanently suspended our...
Guides
How to negotiate a venue deal
Every venue deal I’ve signed started from a position of weakness. No track record, no guarantee, no leverage. The venues...
Guides
Meta ads for events: the three-tier funnel
Most event promoters run one ad, point it at a broad audience, and hope the algorithm figures it out. That...
Guides
The event naming test
Most event promoters name their events whatever sounds cool in the moment. That is a mistake. The name of your...
Guides
Ticket pricing strategy
Ticket pricing is not a math problem. It is a psychology problem with math consequences. Every pricing decision sends a...
Guides
Building a rave community from a group chat
SLIST didn’t start as an event brand. It started as a WhatsApp group in Mexico City for sharing rave flyers....
Guides
Event economics 101
Most event promoters have no idea where their money goes. They throw a party, hope it works out, and either...
Guides
Merch as revenue bridge
Most event promoters treat merch as an afterthought. A box of leftover t-shirts under the DJ booth, sold between sets...
Guides
Set time strategy: how to program a 12-hour event
Programming a 12-hour event is not the same as programming a 4-hour club night stretched out. The energy arc, the...
Guides
SMS marketing for events: the $4.28 cost-per-ticket-sale channel
SMS is the cheapest acquisition channel in event marketing. Not email. Not Instagram ads. Not influencer posts. A text message...
Guides
The introvert’s guide to building a rave empire
Event organizing might be the loneliest profession in the world. Surrounded by 800 people every weekend, and completely isolated in...
Guides
Running a weekly event series
A weekly event series is the single highest-leverage move an underground promoter can make. It is also the fastest way...
Guides
How to throw your first underground event with zero budget
In March 2024, we threw our third event in a SoHo loft with $2,500 total — most of it borrowed,...
Guides
Navigating NYC nightlife politics
Every city’s nightlife scene has a political layer that nobody talks about publicly but everyone navigates privately. NYC’s underground electronic...
Guides
How to Start Your Own “S LIST”
Guides
Promoter Pro Tips
Guides
How to Promote Events and Sell Tickets as an SLIST Affiliate in 2025
You’re not just selling tickets — you’re shaping the future of the rave scene.SLIST promoters aren’t background players. You’re community...
Guides
About: The list of pro raver tips
Why? I think I can offer a bunch of practical tips to my fellow ravers and help them avoid a...
Guides
Curated List of Events
I currently use my stories to share most upcoming events. I then sort each story/flyer by date and into highlights....