Lows-Only in Issue 004

004 Interviews

Issue 004 – Lows-Only

AGHQ June 13, 2023 0

Lows-Only

Lows-Only is a project based out of south Florida.

From top tier underground events to artist management, Lows-Only is here to spread the electronic sound of underground bass music.

Founded in 2020 and has grown to be a staple in the underground community for the Ft Lauderdale to Miami area.

The Interview
By Sergio Mendes

What separates Lows-Only from other promotional brands in South Florida?

One word, exclusivity. We do this primarily to help bring underground bass music to South Florida, and to keep it growing and thriving (for the people – not for the money). We are pushing a genre that has a very niche market here in South Florida, so our effort is genuinely appreciated by the people that come out to our events. We also spend a lot of extra time planning our events in order to provide everyone with a great bass music experience – from sound systems and production, to booking underground acts that wouldn’t normally be brought to Soflo. The business mentality behind our project is what keeps us moving and we think that alone separates us from other local collectives/promotional brands.

How have your individual roles developed/evolved with the Lows-Only brand?

What started as a hobby for us quickly turned into a job on top of our everyday work life. We started with small scale events, and are now booking bigger venues and artists. On top of that, we have started managing artists under our brand as well. At first it was kind of a free for all.. we were both emailing trying to book artists, lock in venues, sound etc. Now its definitely a lot easier as we were able to implement structured roles (Joely handles all of our bookings – from talent buying, to being the booking agent for the
artists on our team, and our main point of contact for anything artist related. Luiggi focuses on business development by building relationships within the industry, while also handling all of the production bookings – from venues to sound and lights. We both situate merch, financials, legalities, staffing, hospitality etc., and both maintain a consistent social media presence.) Our roles vary from managing artists within our label to curating events.

We met through the bass music scene and grew to eventually collaborate on events and shows. What are your thoughts and views on brands collaborating? Is it beneficial or conflicting?

We think brand collaborating has the potential to be very beneficial. Music is for everyone. It’s meant to be shared, and if another brand has the same vision (and aren’t just doing it for a profit), then we’re all for it. It has always been ideal to collaborate with AG because not only have we been in this scene together for over a decade, but we both share the same vision of maintaining and growing the underground scene in South Florida. We are slowly bringing back the dubstep scene down here, and shout out to any other company doing it too! We are working together and helping each other grow in the long run.

As a promoter, it’s difficult to constantly push events, music releases, merchandise drops, etc., while also juggling your normal day to day. How do you maintain the drive and stability to keep up the initiative to promote what you have on your plate?

It’s just our life now – almost as if we have no choice but to face what we have on our plate and get it done. Not going to lie, it is hard for us to keep up with it all sometimes, but we split up our tasks and stay focused. The more work we have to do for our brand, the more we realize the potential of Lows-Only, and what it can grow to become! Marketing has gotten easier over the years as we have created a structured system for
our announcements and promotions that is based on what we have learned from trial and error. We have a promo team that helps to push our events, and we personally target our audiences strategically through social media advertisements (which seems to work better than anything). We are also very grateful for all of the friends we have made over the years that share our love for dubstep and come out to support any events we have. They are mainly what keep us going, and none of this would be possible without them!

With throwing events, it is important to know your market. How do you build lasting relationships with your audience in order to continue throwing successful events?

Back to that one word, exclusivity. We stick to one thing and that is promoting and normalizing the underground scene in South Florida, while working to build a sense of community within our events. On top of that, we make sure that everyone gets to experience bass music through a proper sound system in which they endure frequencies that they can’t normally find at your average event down here. Not to
mention, sound over lights till we die. Even though we strive to provide you with top notch production in every aspect, we budget sound before anything and treat it as a very necessary expense at all of our events. We also think our audience continues to grow because of the experience our attendees have, and how we strive to curate the perfect night for everyone to enjoy themselves in a safe environment.

Where do you see Lows Only in 10 years?

Hopefully celebrating our 5 year anniversary at our warehouse venue in Miami! Our long term goal is to find the perfect space to call our own, where we can create a one of a kind venue for our events. We also hope to be able to curate our own festival in the next few years as well. That’s only the event side of our brand! We can’t even picture the artist management side of this in 10 years because our whole team is killing it right now and bookings are rolling in for all of them. We are all working to build something very special here that we can each benefit from in the future. Going into year 3 soon and neither of us really even expected to be where we are at now, so we are very excited for the future of Lows-Only!

I’m sure the fans are curious. Is there Anything coming up in the near future that you wish to tease with us?

We currently have shows booked until August, and are working on putting together events for the coming months after that. We’ll be throwing a massive beach party with AG, the Shogun Audio rig, and Mystic Grizzly sometime in June. We also may have heard something about our 3rd show for our 360 series taking place in July with Pushloop and Chef Boyarbeatz. That’s all the spoilers you get! – follow us on social media to keep up with our upcoming events.

Is there any advice that you want to offer to anyone interested in following in your similar footsteps in event promotions and artist management?

Don’t do it unless you are ready to be 1000% invested in it in every aspect. Have financial stability because you may not make money when you start. It takes money to make money, so be prepared to not see profit in the beginning. It’s always best to know other brands pushing the same type of events you are, and to keep up with their upcoming bookings. It is also important to stay up to date with trending artists and
upcoming tours.

Also, sometimes you have to be the bad guy – but remember, it’s your brand and your business on the line, so you are liable at the end of the day. Because of this, you have to be prepared to stand your ground at times.

Overall, stay true to your brand’s values, and network as much as possible. Promote your brand consistently, be professional, humble, diligent, and most importantly, don’t give up!

Is there anyone you wish to shout or show love to?

Obviously we have to give the biggest shoutout to AG! You guys are family and we have a great amount of respect for everything you do. We have built a special relationship by working together, and we wouldn’t want it any other way! We’d also like to shout out Underground Garden Events who we have recently started collabing with, and our partner Alex Roggenburg who has been with us from the start. He is our brother and he is there for anything we need. Other than that, we want to send love to the amazing artists on our official L.O. MGMT Summer ‘23 Roster! – RAAKET, SOMETHING STRANGE, DYAD MAFIA, CAVERN, KING JOE & TPISTON (and more TBA)!