– Matt Zingler

The Disruptors

Rolling Loud has firmly established itself as the hip-hop festival play, with the Miami-born festival turning into the hottest lifestyle event and able to pivot with the best of them even in 2020, moving into 2021 with organizers saying their massive lineup featuring superstars such as Travis Scott, Post Malone and A$AP Rocky was fully intact.

“Rolling Loud is working on finalizing expansion agreements and bookings for 2021 in new territories,” says Matt Zingler, co-founder and co-CEO of Rolling Loud, which has transcended the term “festival” in many ways. “We are shifting our schedule appropriately based on COVID.”

Zingler adds that the pandemic has changed his priorities when producing live events.

“COVID has impacted my foresight; you can never predict what’s going to happen. Instead of ticket sales and talent booking being the main focus, the new focus will be on safety,” he says. 

“City officials stating what is allowable will determine how we operate as a company. We’re not health specialists so we have to lean on officials to tell us how to operate to keep everyone safe.”

What started out as a big warehouse party in 2015 has turned into the largest dedicated hip-hop festival brand in the world, having long outgrown  its single-site home base of Miami and maybe too out-growing the term “music festival.”

Zingler says one of his biggest successes was just being taken seriously by the concert industry.

“When agents would actually respond to my emails and take calls, I was like, ‘Holy shit, they are actually communicating with me.'”  Other milestones include “relationships with venues where I could actually get holds which allowed me to do more business” and “being relevant on social media,” which is no understatement, as the dude has more than 1.4 million Instagram followers, putting his influencer status at higher more than most touring artists and earning him rockstar status alongside childhood friend and partner Tariq Cherif.

Business lessons factor in as well, including “Learning that even when I feel that the show didn’t go well, paying attention to the positive response of the fans allowed us to keep expanding.” Although co-creating a major lifestyle brand nearly from scratch as scrappy and still independent club promoters, Zingler credits his father, who always told him, “It’s never about the wins, it’s about how you bounce back from the losses.”

Hot Takes

Artist to watch breaking in the next year? 

 Bones.

Technology most impacting your daily work or personal life? 

iPhone.

Best/worst career-related advice you’ve received?

If you rent this venue that can fit 2,000 people, and you sell $30 tickets, you can make $60,000. That’s the worst advice because it’s overly simplistic. There’s so many additional expenses, even ones that you can’t predict, that take away from the bottom line. 

The best live show you saw this year? 

I saw Billie Eilish at the Triple A. 

Your favorite venue to see a show at and why? 

Soundbar in Orlando – it’s the small, intimate venue where you can see artists right before they turn into superstars. That venue is a launch pad into stardom. The intimacy is there for the consumer. You can get to the front and touch a motherfucker. There’s no riot barricades, no gate separation it’s just an elevated stage. 

The role of live-streaming going forward?

It provides a safety net for those who don’t want to attend in person. I think the industry for live streams has just begun. 

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