For those that don’t know, what is Elektrik Prairie and how did you get started?
“Elektrik Prairie is two things: a music experience and a college event. Every year it’s in Stillwater, Oklahoma and this year on Halloween weekend. As an alumnus of Oklahoma State, I like keeping the event in Stillwater because that’s where I got started. When I went to OSU, they had this event called Orange Peel. My first year in school was the last year they put on the event, but I remember the acts that used to come through-they had people like Jimmy Fallon, Alan Jackson, and Incubus. However, the year I was there Sugarland was the headliner. I remember that the sound was terrible, and the price of the ticket was like $65; simply put, I didn’t enjoy myself.
Now, this was all before the whole “festival scene” had really taken off. I saw that there was an opportunity there, but at the time I didn’t have much experience or resources. So, I started forming connections with people I knew around the school. I’d put on these little shows around town that laid the foundation for what I wanted to create. After a while it started gaining traction and I began working with the university to put on campus sponsored events. We were doing stuff like the OSU Creativity Festival, the Entrepreneurship Club’s Battle of the Bands, etc. Seeing everyone coming together is what really inspired me to do bigger and better things.
Right out of college, I got a job with IMG on the US Open of surfing-which happens to be the largest free festival in the country-and it’d always been a dream of mine to move to Los Angeles, so that worked out perfectly. In Huntington Beach, where they hold the festival, I was one of the festival’s village coordinators. I worked with vendors, sponsors, the health department, the city of Huntington, and just did whatever I could to help out.
After the project was over, I said, I need to go home and do this. I need to show people what I’ve seen in the world. I can bring this idea back to Oklahoma. I wanted to share this experience because it’s the kind of thing that would otherwise only happen in bigger cities. In Oklahoma, outside of OKC and Tulsa, we don’t get a whole lot of big shows. The arts aren’t nearly as important as sports here; culturally speaking, it’s a very limited state, and people can be very narrow minded. I wanted to expand peoples’ minds on different levels because that’s where my principals come from and what drives my experience.
When I came back to Oklahoma in the winter of 2012 I focused my creative drive on this acronym I created, CEMAC: Community, Education, Music, Arts, and Culture. One day I got to talking with one of my business associates, Daniel Andrews, and we got onto the subject of Orange Peel. We both wished something like that still existed. We started talking about it a lot, and the more we talked, the more excited we got. We started throwing different names around, stuff related to Oklahoma, and the word prairie kept coming up. Eventually Dan came up with the name Electric Prairie, and I knew that was it; I added the K’s for special effect, to make the name stand out more. That was the beginning and then I just started working toward it. I talked to people from school and asked questions like, “Who would you like to see in Stillwater? Who would be fun?” Waka Flocka Flame was a name that came up a lot. Luckily, I had promoted a show of his previously when I was working for Global Groove in South Padre. I got into contact with Paul Magee, the owner of Global Groove and creator of UME, and he gave me a lead.
With Waka down, I had to find a venue. I already knew of one from helping a buddy promote a Red Dirt festival that had featured a bunch of bands in this big-ass barn. Casey Donahue, Stoney LaRue, and a bunch of other Red Dirt bands preformed at the event. Because of this, I knew it was possible to transform this horse arena–this horse barn–into a concert-festival type setting. You could cover the place with LED walls and big sound and beer tents, it was a perfect party spot, not just suitable for hoe-downs, but a place where you could really get down! You didn’t feel like you were in one of those strict clubs with dress codes, or giant festivals where you could walk for miles between stages.
With all that settled we started thinking about who else we could bring into Elektrik Prairie. That’s when we got Riff Raff, probably one of the best acts for a college lineup. Elektrik Prairie was also an opportunity for me to help all the people I’d worked with in the past, get them on stage and get them in front of people, as a promoter, that’s our job, always promoting music. Our job isn’t to go out there and swindle money out of people. No, our job is to promote music at its core, and secondly, sell tickets with the artists, to make a cool show happen for the fans. And that doesn’t happen all that often, so I really pride myself on making sure that all of the energy comes together and that people get to experience something they can remember. You hear your parents talk about rock ‘n’ roll concerts, “Oh, me and your dad went out to see KISS and girls were showing their tits and everyone was smokin’ weed, and it was crazy!” They remember stuff like that. I want that to translate into today’s world.
I want to create a memory that people will be able to talk about forever. I want them to know that we throw high caliber, quality events, and that we care about every aspect of the event. We’re providing party shuttles that are equipped with lighting and speakers that offer rides from campus, bars, and the venue, to make sure everyone can get back and forth safely. Nobody’s drinking and driving. The party shuttles are free, but patrons have the ability to purchase a priority pass at an additional fee that allows them to jump the line; but, obviously, if they have the patience and are willing to wait, the shuttles are still free.”
