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Indie is in: How Karpos carved its own niche in the country’s concert scene
If you’re a live music junkie between the ages of 16 and 40, there’s a more than fair chance you’re familiar with Karpos Multimedia. Perhaps best-known for producing Wanderland, the country’s biggest and longest-running indie music festival, the concert and events company is also responsible for bringing in artists like Phoenix, LANY, Bastille, Alt-J, and many others.
While there are several other active local concert promoters, Karpos has set itself apart by focusing on artists that appeal to a specific demographic — millennial and Gen Z music fans. Stephanie, John, and Nicole Uy, — the millennial siblings who run the company — admit that this focus stems from their own biases. They bring in mostly the artists that they themselves like.
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Karpos’ latest venture is a live music series featuring full sets from local and foreign artists. The first edition, called Mix 1.1 featured local indie darlings Reese Lansangan and Tom’s Story. Mix 1.2 was headlined by international acts Honne and Anderson .Paak.
On Thursday, August 23, Mix 2.1 will feature the Manila debuts of British jazz-pop sensation Tom Misch and Australian electro-pop outfit Vancouver Sleep Clinic. Finally, Mix 2.2 scheduled on October 6, 2018, is top-billed by local artists Clara Benin and Ben & Ben. All shows will be held at the Vertis Tent in Quezon City.
But how exactly did Karpos get its start? What’s their assessment of today’s local concert scene? And who’s in their wish list as far as artists they’d like to bring in? In this exclusive interview, Steph and John answer those questions and give us a glimpse into the sometimes exciting, sometimes stressful world of concert production.
GMA News: Please give us a brief background of yourself before starting Karpos. Where did you study, what was your course, when did you graduate, and did you work anywhere else before Karpos??
Steph: I studied Multimedia Arts at De La Salle College of Saint Benilde and graduated eight years ago, then I started Karpos. ?
John: I took up Civil Engineering at DLSU Manila but dropped out and started working for Karpos directly.
Where did the idea of starting Karpos come from? How did it happen? And what’s it like working with your siblings??
Steph: After graduation, and with the help of my parents and support from my older sister, I started Karpos but not as an events company. It was focused on graphic and web designing since that’s my expertise. My cousin who works at a music label company invited our family to invest and produce concerts and the rest is history.
John started helping during the preparation of Wanderland and our sister Nicole, who now handles our creative department, joined the company after she graduated.
Working with my siblings is fun because we have the same interests and goals. Sometimes we agree to disagree, but at the end of the day we prioritize those goals and execute tasks that benefit those goals.
What was your very first event/concert? What was it like and what sort of challenges did you encounter?
It was The Cranberries at Araneta Coliseum in April 2012. Since we were new to the business it was hard to promote the show and attract ticket buyers. Also, we didn’t know the ins and outs of this business especially the production part and that was one of the biggest struggles we encountered. But we’re thankful that we met people from the industry who guided and helped us to achieve what we have today.
When did you know that Karpos was beginning to be a success?
We haven’t reached that point where we feel Karpos is a success. We thank God that we’ve come this far. It’s a steady progress but we believe that we're still far from being a successful company in general.
Was there a show or event that made you believe that you could keep doing what you were doing for the long-term?
It was definitely the first Wanderland festival back in 2013 that made us believe that we could keep doing this for the long term. Even though that it wasn’t financially successful that year we felt that the potential of it as a brand and a community was too promising for us to let it go.
There are many other concert organizers and promoters in the country today. Karpos is different because you've managed to carve your own niche with the genre of artists that you bring in (mostly indie). How did this come about? Did this start because you wanted to bring in artists that you yourselves were fans of?
Yes, we can say that it’s mostly because we’re fans of the artists that we bring in. We always say that one of the major factors in our selection process is our personal biases — if we don’t like the artist available it’s very likely that we don’t do it. Haha!
How do you decide now which foreign artists you want to bring to the country, especially since many of the acts are only beginning to make noise in the music scene? Do you just partner with other foreign promoters or do you actively seek out the artists that you think would do well in the Philippines?
All of the above. First we make a list of artists we’d like to prioritize and really get in touch with and see how we can potentially produce a show for them here in the Philippines, and then we actively collaborate with our promoter friends in the region (Asia) to see which artists they are working on that we can potentially ride on. Lastly, we speak to a number of agents to see which artists they are routing tours for.
What lessons have you learned from concerts that you produced that weren't as successful as your other big shows?
That the market is so hard to read and that we just can’t decide to bring an artist just because we like them. At the end of the day, this is a business so we have to make decisions that would benefit the company versus us feeding our live music cravings.
Tell us about Karpos Live. Why did you decide to produce a smaller-scale series of shows featuring local and foreign acts (instead of full-on shows in bigger venues like you've been doing in the past)?
There are three major objectives of this brand: We want to provide a platform of our talented homegrown acts to be able to produce their own full- set concert with top quality equipment and stage; we want to present international indie artists in an intimate space; and we want to give the people a damn good time
So for this, we wanted to focus on the purity of a live music experience. Basically, just music + you.
Do you think Pinoy concert audiences have changed at all since you first started Karpos? Do you feel their tastes changing or do you think they want more of the same things?
Yes, definitely. We see more and more people listening to better music. It’s definitely subjective but that’s how I want to classify it. It’s largely due to the sudden rise of the music streaming business. It’s definitely helping us though as most of the artists we bring in are independent and likely don’t have label support that helps them get playtime on radio, et cetera.
What do you think is the most important element about producing a concert, one that would guarantee success above all others?
VALUE. We always want to make sure that our tickets are affordable and reasonable. We had a number of opportunities that we had to pass up on because we feel that the fees are too high that we’d be forced to price our tickets in an unreasonable manner, which is unacceptable for us as promoters and live music enthusiasts.
Who's on your wish list in terms of artists that you'd like to bring here to the Philippines? Are there artists you've brought here that you wouldn't mind bringing back again?
John: Hmm there are so many to mention but my top 5, I’d say Tame Impala, Arctic Monkeys, The Head and The Heart, Frank Ocean, and The Black Keys.
Steph: My top 5 are Tame Impala, Vampire Weekend, Iron and Wine, Vance Joy, and Bruno Major.
Both: Phoenix (Our Parisian Family!!) would always be the act that we’d bring back no questions asked. We just need the date and we’re set.
Steph: Honne too! <3 — AT, GMA News
Paul John Caña is a writer and live music geek. Check out his blog, manontheside or follow him on Twitter and Instagram as @pauljohncana.
