Today we’d like to introduce you to Brad Sweet.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Brad. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’ve played music my whole life but like many people got caught up trying to form a “career” in my early twenties. After my first employer got shut down by the authorities I bounced around a bit and was working in a cubicle selling coaching classes to people…it was an emotional sale, one where I asked people every day, “if money and time were no longer an issue for you, what would you do with your life?”. After some time, I started to ask myself why I was spending 10 hours a day stuffed in a closet-sized office and decided if I could do anything with my life, it would be music. Whether playing it, listening to it, producing it or this festival…I wanted to bring more of myself to music.
I played in a bunch of different bands out here which introduced me to my soon-to-be partner in this venture, Peter Eichar. We played in a couple of bands together and always kind of saw eye-to-eye in a business sense.
Honestly, the festival came out of wanting to do the right thing at the right time. I wanted to do something big and texted Peter randomly asking if he wanted to put on a festival with me. He responded back “yes” in about 30 seconds. We met the next day and when most of the hair-brain ideas fall apart within a few days, ours stayed alive.
This project is really big so where we’re at today is just a testament to consistently pushing the ball forward and allowing great people to join in and help. Living in San Diego puts me close to so much inspiring talent – it makes it much easier to do this!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Well if I were expecting a smooth road, I got into the wrong line of business. Event planning in general isn’t a smooth road; planning a wedding isn’t easy, planning a multi-day music festival is a very bumpy road and takes a lot of flexibility as a business owner to adapt to. I think year one our biggest challenge was convincing people we were real and not another FYRE fest…I can’t tell you how many comments I read calling us that year one. I don’t know what these people do all day or why writing that on our business page gives them joy, but a lot of people spent their time writing some very mean comments to us lol.
Honestly, they should have come out to the festival instead, because they would’ve probably got way more out of saying “yes” to the new festival and experiencing the year one magic than taking to social media to spread more hate.
I digress…yes we have plenty of struggles and still do. Honestly, sometimes it feels like a giant struggle bus. Luckily all has run smooth for festival-goers, artists and law-enforcement which is what really matters.
While we’re on the topic of smooth roads, did I mention I work exclusively from an old converted church bus which I’ve made my office?
Same Same But Different Music Festival – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Our business is called Same Same But Different and we’re all about having a good time! It wouldn’t be possible without my partner Peter Eichar, we both work very hard at this. We put together a two-day music festival in September in Lake Perris State Park (a smidge north of Temecula)…it’s on the beach, we have two main stages and two side stages, a floatopia day party, multiple bars and food options, lounges, hammocks, yoga classes and camping on the waterside.
In addition we promote other shows through the year and are in collaboration with a non-profit called The Social Garden in Oceanside and are working on a headquarters art-collab space to put on many more events through the end of 2019 and into 2020.
We’re an in-between kind of festival. Southern California is home to quite a few “mega-festivals” with lots to do, tons of different genres of music, beer gardens, etc. It also has a lot of awesome small niche festivals that maybe only have EDM or only have reggae. We wanted to make a smaller festival that still brought different kinds of music together in a meaningful way. I think we’ve really tastefully done that.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I had a moment last year where I stood on the backstage looking out at the crowd and just thought about how cool it is to see this come to life. That was it…it only lasted a second before I got pulled away in another direction but that part was great.
Pricing:
- General Admission Pass – $160 (until August 16th then $175)
- VIP Upgrade Pass – $115
- On-Site RV Rentals (4, 6 and 8 person) – $150 per person
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ssbdfest.com
- Email: info@ssbdfest.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/ssbdfest
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ssbdfest
Image Credit:
Collin Worrel & Greg Chapman
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