35 denton: behind the scenes
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by lucinda breeding
Courtesy photo/Kyle LaValley
A dedicated team has made 35 Denton the little brand that could
Their best for the fest
I
t began as a ragtag Denton party and concert in Austin during South by Southwest, the region’s biggest and most influential film and music event. Then it became a downtown Denton music festival luring big-name music acts like the Flaming Lips, Big Boi and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Now, 35 Denton is a brand and a business that has a beefy goal in sight, creative director Kyle LaValley says: to pave an intersection between art, commerce and innovation. 16
“We want to help Denton get over its confidence problem. And I want that printed, because it’s true,” LaValley says. “I’ve only been here a few years, and I’ve really seen it. Just because you’re creating something in a small town doesn’t mean it’s small-town quality. “We’ve got Grammy winners all over town. But when bands from Denton say where they’re from, a lot of times they’ll say they’re from Dallas.” The T-shirt campaign for this year’s 35 Denton will be an official proclamation. It will announce “F--- yeah, I’m from Denton!” LaValley shares directorship of the brand and the festiLittle d After Dark
val with Natalie Davila, a Denton resident with roots in the music scene. Davila once operated the Majestic Dwelling of Doom, a high-profile Denton house show venue. Now, Davila is using her intuitive booking skills as program director of 35 Denton. When LaValley calls 35 Denton “the youngest, hippest and most progressive” body in the city, it’s neither spin nor boasting. It’s apt. Denton has perhaps more than its fair share of festivals, but 35 Denton brings in the largest concentration of young, tech-savvy people with dollars to spend. (A survey of Twitter during the 2011 and 2012 festivals confirms the claim. In 2011, the festival was a trending topic in Dallas-Fort Worth. What does that mean? Generally, it means that the festival was mentioned about 20 times per minute on Twitter in the Dallas region. In 2012, the festival’s Twitter profile dropped a little, but the hashtag was pinging fast and hot on the site.) Last September, the company launched the Hot Wet Mess, a huge back-to-school bash that married a one-day music festival with a pop-up water park. The company is planning to stage Hot Wet Mess again this year — this time with more water features, LaValley says. Over the past two years, 35 Denton has been acting more like a business than a party. With a staff of two — LaValley and Davila — a board and a big corps of volunteers, the company (it is a for-profit, limited liability corporation) has been hooking up innovation with corporate sponsors. The brand operates, though, like a grassroots nonprofit. Exhibit A? The Hive. “The Hive is a new venue. An empty warehouse on the corner of Sycamore and Bell,” LaValley says. It will also be the largest indoor venue the festival has ever had. At 12,000 square feet, the Hive will have room for a stage — or two — a bar and 800 music lovers. LaValley says the warehouse is owned by a developer with plans for a pub and restaurant. The festival rented the space and brought it up to code to use it as the Hive. “When we first took the inspector for the fire department over there, he took one look at the space and was like, ‘No. Absolutely not. No way,’” LaValley says. “We had to explain our vision and our plan. We made it happen.” LaValley says she got the idea for the Hive from her Michigan hometown. “I grew up around spaces that were repurposed. I grew up in Detroit, where an empty factory was turned into a thousand-person rave,” she says. “That’s where the value of a lot of this is, in showing developers what is already here, and how it can be used for something else. “It’s not about the festival. It’s about creating a palette for the activity in Denton, and then making it easy for people to enjoy what’s already here.” The festival gets the Hive, but Denton gets an example of how to turn an inert space into an interactive one. In the meantime, the 35 Denton brand will grow through the connections made at the festival and build more on the goodwill the music festival has accumulated. Sure, there has been grumbling about street closures and the lines the festival has generated at downtown bars. “There are going to be lines. That’s just the reality,” LaValley says. “And you won’t be able to get into any of the venues without a wristband this year.” LaValley says it was “surreal” to stand back and watch the festival over the last three years, when she first got >>
Continued on 18 March 2013