Halifax-Based Side Door Collaborating with SXSW
HALIFAX–A Halifax company dedicated to pairing musicians with venues is officially involved with one of the biggest festivals in the world: South by Southwest (SXSW).
Side Door will be booking a mini road tour for five of the artists playing at SXSW 2022. Each band will play up to five shows between their hometowns and Austin, Texas, where SXSW is held each year.
The five featured artists include Abstract Rude, Gully Boys, JUNACO, S.C.A.B, and Status/Non-Status. A sixth artist, Bad Waitress, was originally scheduled to tour but had to pull out.
Laura Simpson, who co-founded Side Door in 2017 with Dan Mangan, says this idea for a partnership with SXSW came in 2019, when she wanted to solve some problems for featured artists.
“How can we help artists arrive at these big events with more money in their pockets, more rehearsal, and more buzz when they land?” she asked.
She believes Side Door is a perfect platform to book shows for an artist hitting the road leading up to SXSW. It operates on the philosophy that any space can be a venue for a concert: an open field, someone’s house, a backyard, or a business, to name a few.
The platform is home to 5,000 artists and 2,000 venues across Canada and the United States.
Side Door is still booking some venues for its five SXSW artists, but some interesting locations have already been chosen. One outdoor concert is set to take place near Joshua Tree, California. Other venues include a record shop, stores, and cafes.
The performers will be hitting the road early next month. SXSW takes place between March 11-20 this year. There will also be a Side Door-to-SXSW showcase event happening at the Drafting Room March 18.
Pairing up with a major festival like SXSW is a major victory for Side Door but it nearly didn’t happen. The collaboration was supposed to take place at SXSW in March of 2020–the same month Covid-19 took over the world and caused festivals everywhere to cancel.
But Simpson, Mangan, and the team didn’t quit on their vision.
“We were navigating some stress from having worked for months on this project and then having to shut it all down,” recalls Simpson. “There were a lot of questions from the team. Should we try again? Is it worth it? Everything is a little bit of a crapshoot these days.”
“We definitely had to re-ask (SXSW). Not all the same people we were working with are still there. They had a huge layoff right after the pandemic began. But they were quite enthusiastic.”
When it came to choosing the participating artists, Simpson let others from Side Door choose the fortunate five. Upon listening to all their music, Simpson will be cheering for Side Door’s performers to kill it at SXSW.
“I actually recused myself from choosing the artists. I left that up to the artists who are on our team,” says Simpson. “But after the bands were chosen I listened to all of them and fell in love with all of them; I’m really into Gully Boys.”
Fans of the artists will be able to follow the road trip this March. Side Door will be sending some content creators along to post live updates of the mini tour.
Derek Montague is a Huddle reporter in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].