As the pandemic hit, John Summit, an up-and-coming Chicago DJ whose music had exploded online during the lockdown, had a plan to translate that internet presence into real life. “Our strategy was to be everywhere,” says Summit director Holt Harmon. “Like, ubiquitous.”
In 2021 and early 2022, Summit and his team toured North American nightclubs as they reopened, showing supporters (and themselves) that Summit's online hype could be turned into in-person entertainment. In May 2021, he sold out a 500-capacity venue in Tempe, Ariz., in just 12 seconds.
The group then transitioned from clubs to 2,000-capacity venues, investing profits in stage production. “We were smart about how we lived at the time,” Harmon says. “I did everything from a kitchen table with my partner and John worked from his parents' house.”
Since then, Summit has sold out headlining sets at Los Angeles' BMO Stadium and New York's Madison Square Garden, with three nights at Los Angeles' Kia Forum in mid-November. The big venue bookings work as part of a three-pronged touring plan for Summit, which also includes Experts Only's head-to-head club and stage festival appearances as Everything Always, Summit's duo project with Australian producer Dom Dolla.
The hybrid approach allows for different creative opportunities: Experts Only parties, for example, offer no-frills production and let Summit stay close to their audience and try out new music. It's also easy to get them on the road, often at destination venues like The Caverns in Pelham, Tenn. (“My goal is Experts Only Alps,” says Summit, who named the party, and his company, after his love of skiing. “That would be sick.”)
Meanwhile, the arena and stadium stages cater to huge audiences, including fans who might just be into electronic music through Summit's approachable style of progressive house. And Everything Always lets two artists come together to play “bigger, more impressive things than if they were [them] separately,” Harmon says, like the duo's appearance at Coachella in April. “People ask how we continue to cycle through the markets year after year,” says Harmon, who is also co-founder and CEO of management company Metatone. “It's that we can treat it as three different forms.”
The plan is to do it again internationally. With 50% of Summit's tours in 2025 taking place overseas, Harmon says “the future of John Summit is a global business.” Now, Summit's largest sets require a crew of 180 and cost about $1.5 million to produce. But despite the growth, the essential goal remains the same as it was in the early days. “I still work from the kitchen table,” Summit says, “but it's my kitchen table now.”
This story appears in the October 26, 2024 issue Bulletin board.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/touring/john-summit-dance-dj-touring-experts-only-shows-1235810299/
