Spaceland Presents, the Los Angles based indie promoter, today announced it is expanding from a pure music promotion and production company into a full-service entertainment firm which will promote and produce one-offs, niche festivals as well as events in hospitality and food.
As part of the initiative, the promoter has announced several key hires and promotions, including Chris Diaz who was named VP, senior talent buyer and who will play a central role in booking The Regent Theater in downtown L.A.
Diaz, who formerly worked for Goldenvoice and Knitting Factory, spent the last three years booking L.A.’s Roxy Theater and Pomona’s Glass House.
Spaceland Presents also announced it has promoted Luke Hanna from junior talent buyer for Spaceland to the role of talent buyer for The Echo & Echoplex.
Liz Garo, who for the past 15 years had been booking The Echo, will continue to lead the company’s curation team and development initiatives. Garo, together with Diaz & Hanna, will steer Spaceland’s outside L.A. events.
Additionally, Erin Domash joins Spaceland as director of special events & sponsorship and will expand Spaceland’s range of live offerings. She formerly worked for The LA Weekly where she helmed a number of events including LA’s largest ticketed food festival Tacolandia.
“With our growing presence in the region’s music scene as well as our partnership with ?Knitting Factory?, it made perfect sense to further expand our offerings,” Spaceland Presents founder Mitchell Frank said in a statement. “I know the team I have put together will ?deliver outstanding productions for fans and brands, today marks a new chapter of growth, I can’t wait to get started.”
Spaceland’s Presents was founded in 1995 by Frank out of of the famed Silver Lake music club Spaceland. While that venue has since closed, Spaceland Presents has expanded its footprint to include the Echo, the Echoplex and the Regent. The promoter also produces music events like The Natural History Museum’s First Fridays, Echo Park Rising and the Santa Monica Pier’s Twilight Concert Series.
Last September the New York based Knitting Factory Entertainment acquired a 49% stake in Spaceland Presents. The two have since collaborated on the Regent and on Desert Daze, an experimental rock festival held at the Institute of Mentalphysics in Joshua Tree.
Upcoming Spaceland Presents projects include a new concert series at The Levitt Pavilion in MacArthur Park slated for this summer and a series at L..A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).
The promoter has also collaborated on producing projects and events for Spotify, Lennox , KCRW, LA Times , SPIN, Alamo Drafthouse and The Annenberg Foundation.
Spaceland currently employs over 20 full-time employees and is set to produce over 1,200 events in 2017
Frank, in his statement, noted that the new initiatives won’t be easy. “With growth comes challenges,” he said, “and currently my biggest challenge is keeping enough cold brew in the fridge for employees and outgrowing our current office in downtown L.A.?”