The legend behind So What?! Music Festival, Mike Ziemer, has been gearing up for the 2023 edition of the festival. While this is an especially busy time of year, he keeps busy between promoting countless shows with Third String Productions, and many other projects. We haven’t interviewed Mike for a few years, so come see what all we get in to when we caught up.
BBE: It has been a few years since we talked and you have been staying insanely busy. Could you reintroduce yourself to new readers and your companies?
MZ: Howdy! My name is Mike Ziemer, I have been a promoter since 2004 and created So What?! Music Festival (formerly known as South By So What?!) in 2008. I also manage artists including He Is Legend, run a couple studios here in Dallas, and am a partner on Furnace Fest.
BBE: You are the legend behind So What?! Music Festival. I want to jump back to your first one. Did you think at that time the festival would be where it is today?
MZ: I honestly didn’t even realize what was happening at the time. Technically, it was our 4 year anniversary show as a company and our graphic designer suggested seeing if we could get away with the name “South By So What?!” because we were making a fest for all the under 21 kids that couldn’t attend SXSW. I never even thought I would book half the bands I have, let alone put the festival in baseball stadiums and where the State Fair happens. Truly insane to me.
BBE: How did you approach So What?! (or South By So What?!) back then as opposed to now?
MZ: Back then it was sort of more like everyone coming to me with the bands that were playing SXSW and us just putting them all together. Tours were routed through SXSW and it was easy to just have them all come up to Dallas (Plano) for a festival and actually get paid. We pretty much made it so the bands could afford to perform at SXSW without the payments there. Now, we have switched timeframes and it’s more about landing a solid weekend and solid headliners than sticking to a specific date and basing the fest around another fest. We have become our own stand alone fest.
BBE: Obviously you don’t do all this alone and you have built an awesome team. Care to shout some of them out?
MZ: Of course, we have about 10 people regularly in our office, a really solid street team, and amazing partners (Disco Donnie Presents) this year. It’s really been me and Orlando Mendoza though basically since 2010 (I think that was the first year he was semi a part of it). By 2011 he was fully involved and we actually sold that year out in advance which pushed us to the Ball Park. But the fest wouldn’t be happening without Orlando, my wife Anna Marie, Cheyanne, and the rest of our team!
BBE: Last year was So What’s big return. What goal did you have when you started preparing that one?
MZ: To be honest, we were just starry eyed again. Covid messed a lot of things up and we were so anxious to be back we just kinda said yes to everything and kept adding and adding and tried to create this insanely massive festival that just didn’t really pan out as we planned. We wanted it to be career changing in a good way, but it honestly almost ended us because of rising expenses and just everything that got messed up with the economy. Very happy to still be here though.
BBE: Fast forward to this year, was your goal the same or how did it change from last year?
MZ: Our goal this year was like the total opposite. We wanted to cater to the old Warped Tour crowd by doing the festival in the summer, doing it at Fair Park, coming outta the gate with super cheap tickets (2 days for $99), scaling down to quality over quantity, capping parking at $10 per day, and just making it more of a “bang for your buck” type fest than going huge and charging huge prices like everyone else. Last year we tried to be everybody but ourselves, this year is 100% on brand.
BBE: What is something that people do not think about when it comes to planning such a huge festival?
MZ: The costs. I see people so often be like “oh they sold 6000 tickets at $100 a ticket, so they made $600,000.” The average person working a 9-5 job doesn’t really think about where the money comes from or what the overhead and expenses are. They just focus on their job and go home at 5pm and usually the work ends there. For us this is a 24/7 job where we have to factor in everything from cost of porta potties to fencing to security to staging and everything is always moving price wise so even the best budget can be off by a mile.
BBE: How do you go about starting to piece together a lineup and who you want on?
MZ: We usually pencil in some dates, reach out to the agents, and find a couple tour packages or artists that we can base the festival around. This year, The Used/Pierce The Veil tour was the major tour we based the festival around. From there we just take submissions and put together a line up we feel will do the festival justice.
BBE: No lineup is going to 100% please everyone unfortunately. Is this something you’ve grown used to over the years or how do you react to seeing negative comments regarding any lineup?
MZ: I still argue with people online because I take it more personally than I should. You try to curate something like this so perfectly and it’s so close to your heart that when people are just slamming it it’s hard to ignore. It’s important to remember that usually the loudest voices online represent the smallest percentage of people and that anyone wasting their time bashing a fest probably doesn’t leave their parents house to go to shows anyway.
BBE: Are there any bands you are especially excited you were able to book for this year’s festival?
MZ: It’s really awesome to have The Used back after 9 years, very stoked to have Pierce The Veil, amazing to see Neck Deep headlining, and this is the first time we’ve ever been able to give Sleeping With Sirens the proper billing they deserve. When they were blowing up, they got a bunch of SXSW showcases so when they’d drive up to play our fest they would have to play later on a small stage. I’m super excited to see their set. As far as up and coming acts, I love LøLø, Taylor Acorn, 408, Don Broco, Idk it’s really hard i love so much of this line up. On the rap side Jeleel!, Whokilledxix, Nascar Aloe, Freddie Dredd, literally everyone.
BBE: I love how music festivals introduce people to bands from all over the musical spectrum that you would possibly never listen to. What does it mean to you to be able to give some smaller and newer bands opportunities like these festivals to play in front of potentially big crowds?
MZ: It’s honestly why I do this in the first place. I started out helping local bands in my area and built up to where I am now. The goal is always to include locals, regionals, and smaller touring bands. I LOVE being the first to put an artist on a festival and giving them that experience.
BBE: We’ve gone over bands on this festival. Is there still a band out there that is your absolute dream band to be able to book for a future So What?
MZ: Yeah, I wanna bring back Bring Me The Horizon. They got rained out the year we booked them. I think that was 2014. I want them to come back and actually get to perform. Would love to book Trash Talk, Sleep Token, Bad Omens, probably a lot of the same other festivals would say haha.
BBE: In the past you had mentioned wanting to take So What?! to other cities too. Is that still something you are interested in doing?
MZ: Yes 100% something I want to do and plan to do.
BBE: What is the best way for people to keep up with your team’s announcements for the festival and other shows?
MZ: Follow So What?! On socials (FB/Insta/Twitter/TikTok), follow Third String Productions (FB/Insta/Twitter/TikTok). Check our website thirdstringproductions.com
BBE: Anything else you would like to add?
MZ: Honestly, just thank you to everyone that’s made it possible for me to do this for almost 20 years now. I never knew this could be a career. I grew up with everyone wanting to be in bands. Nobody wanted to be the promoter haha.
Get your tickets, but act fast!
