“The locations are usually an interesting office or co-working space or it could be a beautiful church or listed building – we’re open to most places if we think it creates an interesting guest experience.”Īnd, on top of the secret location, you won’t know the artists playing either. Natasha Bobbe, the London director for Sofar Sounds, also notes how this is a little different in the City of London because the area has so few residential buildings. That’s to safeguard the people hosting the event – which can be just about anyone who can fit 40 or so people into one of their rooms. You don’t get an address until a few days beforehand. When you’re booking your slot online, you only get told the borough of the location. The secret locations are still a huge drawcard. But it still holds on to its extra special qualities. They seem to have laxed on these rules recently – hence the shoeless chaps, loud food eaters and phone obsessed viewers being present. Don’t use your phone, shut up and enjoy a night of live music. Initially, they would set the rules very clearly for each event. Hope to get into some really fun spaces with all the cool vibes. Now they are in over 430 cities worldwide. They then slowly branched out to other London venues (think yoga studios, pubs and churches) before they went global. To counter this, they started holding shows in people’s front rooms. Most were on their phones, they kept talking throughout the sets, and there were often too many people crammed into tight spaces. The entire concept started off because the founders were fed up with the ways in which people acted at traditional music gigs.
This all flies in the face of the Sofar Sounds ethos, which is based around unbounding respect to the performers. Sitting within one of the Square Mile’s co-working spaces there’s a group of lads laying down with their socks off and feet out in the crowd, a couple are munching loudly on crisps while the musicians play and a young woman sits up the very front but spends the entire evening on her phone texting. You can come across both the best and worst of humanity at a Sofar Sounds gig.
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