Head-bangers rejoice — an electronic dance music artist is performing in Gainesville this month.
Chris Lake will be playing a roughly two-hour set at Simon’s nightclub Dec. 8 in a show hosted by local event organizer Alliance Events.
The show will take place from 9:30 p.m. until 2 a.m. at Simon’s, located at 8 Main St. Tickets can be purchased online from EventBrite’s website and third-party vendors like StubHub and Ticketmaster. General admission is $40 and VIP is $65. Ages 18 and over are welcome.
Dave Marren, co-founder and booking director at Alliance, said Lake has visited Gainesville before, and the business has previously organized shows for him to perform.
“We’ve done probably six to ten shows with Chris Lake in other venues throughout Florida,” Marren said. “We’ve had a relationship working for him for, I don't know, seven years now.”
The company is responsible for the concert’s production from top to bottom. Their responsibilities include organizing the talent, production, venue, and ticket sales and overseeing marketing strategies and customer service.
Alliance will use Boosted Events, a company founded by three University of Florida students, to advertise to students in Gainesville. Jack Schuster and Paul Kocenko, two of the co-founders, said that social media ads, student ambassadors and ticket giveaways are the most successful strategies for marketing.
“We find that the more tickets that you sell within the 24 to 48 hours of announcing the show, the better the show will do,” Schuster said. “Once we did the ticket giveaway, I think we sold like 200-300 hundred tickets within the first 24 hours.”
Students like Donatella Panunzio, a 20-year-old business administration major, who purchased tickets for the event, said an interest in electronic dance music and interaction with ads on social media influenced their choice.
“I bought my tickets right when it was posted on Instagram that he was coming to Gainesville,” Panunzio said. “I was more worried about the prices going up, so I decided to get a ticket because I knew I wanted to see him.”
Prior to his Gainesville show, Lake will be performing on Dec. 1 at Bajas Beach Club in Tallahassee. Kocenko said he may be stopping at multiple venues across the state in a package deal of performances due to his popularity.
“I know a lot of students are really excited because Chris Lake is a pretty hot name, especially in college markets,” Kocenko said. “A lot of his songs are played at the clubs and bars in college towns — they’re all viral.”
Lake is among roughly a half-dozen DJs who have performed in Gainesville this year, including Diplo, R.L. Grime, Steve Aoki and Chris Lorenzo. Schuster said he believes the vaccine, the COVID-19 pandemic’s gradual decline and students’ desire to socialize again drive the events’ popularity.
“I’m noticing a bit of over-saturation in the market, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be successful,” Schuster said. “It just means that you have to bring the top-end talent and people will show out.”
Marren, Schuster and Kocenko said the show could be a good way for students to celebrate the end of the semester with one final event.
“The response has been fantastic, people are really excited to have him back,” Marren said. “It would be like a last hurrah.”
Doors for the event open at 9:30 p.m. Simon’s nightclub holds a capacity of approximately 750, and organizers expect the event to sell out.
Maia Botek is a contributing writer for The Alligator.
Maia Botek is a third-year journalism major and Spanish minor covering student government this semester. Maia is from South Florida and enjoys the beach, spending time with her friends and learning about the environment in her free time.
