Blogging
Volver no es repetir: Timmy Trumpet x Bassworld en Azteca Estudios
Durante el sábado 25 de abril en Azteca Estudios, fue notorio lo evidente que es cuando el público tiene solo...
Author
SLIST
Updates
3,000 guests processed, 2 removals
Three thousand guests scanned across twenty-plus events. Two removals. That number is not an accident. It is the result of...
Dark Culture
Can a cult have no visible leader?
A brand that survives without its founder’s daily presence is an institution. A brand that cannot is a personality cult....
Dark Culture
Following the money, not the narrative
The first question is never who was right. The first question is always why did this happen. The second question...
Dark Culture
Heartbreak into output
Heart is broken. How do I productivity-max for eventual stunting? That was the actual question, asked the morning after, with...
Guides
How to deal with competitors who call the cops
A rival collective called the cops on our free events because we were drawing crowds across the street from their...
Guides
How to run a rave chapter in another city
SLIST started in Mexico City before it existed in New York. The expansion from CDMX to NYC — and the...
Guides
How to structure a co-promotion deal
Co-promotions are the fastest way to scale an event beyond what your budget and audience can reach alone. They’re also...
Guides
How to survive a police raid
At the 37th event, two hours in, NYPD and FDNY shut it down. Arrested alongside a staff member who was...
Guides
Liquor licensing for event promoters
Selling alcohol at raves without a liquor license is the single biggest legal exposure for event promoters. Every workaround has...
Dark Culture
Loved. Hated. Feared. Respected.
The four axes of personal brand positioning are not a matrix from a business school textbook. They are the four...
Dark Culture
Studying religion as a power system
Religion is studied here as a power system, not a faith system. The questions are always how did this work,...
Dark Culture
Term limits are the real problem
The real issue with American politics is 4-8 year term limits. It takes too long to make positive change happen...
Events
The lockdown cohort: our founding members
The people who came during lockdown are not just fans. They are founders. March 2021 New York was still locked...
Updates
The mission statement, year by year
Every year the mission statement changed. Not because we did not know what we were doing, but because we were...
Dark Culture
The pragmatic centrist in a binary world
As a centrist, it seemed to me that the Democrats wanted this huge influx to create more liberal voters as...
Dark Culture
The promotion role changes your personality
When I was just a raver, I was the most chill person alive. Ever since I got into promoting, it...
Dark Culture
The voice evolution
The journey was: unfiltered, then code-switching, then filtered, then deliberately unfiltered again. The formality skills were not lost. The choice...
Dark Culture
Trump as a tool, not an idol
Certain jobs require a certain type of person. The moral character of the politician is irrelevant to whether they are...
Guides
Curation as product
Curation is not a playlist. It’s a product discipline. The lineup is the product. The brand is the trust that...
Uncategorized
Equipment rental for events
Equipment rental is one of the hidden costs that catches new promoters off guard. The difference between a $425 CDJ...
Uncategorized
Fake follower detection
Fake followers are the counterfeit currency of the nightlife scene. A DJ with 10,000 followers who can actually bring 20...
Guides
Flyer design for underground events
The flyer is the first impression of your event. In underground culture, it’s also a statement of intent. A bad...
Scene
From CDMX to NYC: how a rave brand crossed borders
SLIST was born in Mexico City in June 2021. A native New Yorker on a solo backpacking trip started an...
Guides
Hardware live sets as programming differentiator
Every underground lineup in NYC looks the same: eight DJs playing CDJs for an hour each. The programming blurs together....
Guides
How to add vendors to your event
Events that offer only music are leaving money on the table. Adding vendors — clothing, art, tattoos, food — transforms...
BTS
Music file quality: why we check every DJ’s library
Before any DJ plays a SLIST event, we verify their music library. This is not a suggestion. It is a...
Scene
Philly debut: the first event outside NYC
SLIST’s first event outside the NYC metro happened in Philadelphia. This was not an experiment in geographic expansion. It was...
Guides
Physical flyer distribution
Digital marketing is the default. Everyone runs Instagram ads, everyone has an SMS list, everyone is optimizing their Meta pixel....
Dark Culture
Safe space language is performative nonsense
A DJ cancelled a 12-hour rave booking because the event refused to adopt safe space language. Not over money. Not...
Dark Culture
Stop marketing an event. Start marketing the calendar.
The standard promoter playbook: create an event, design a flyer, run ads for 30 days, hope people show up. Repeat...
Dark Culture
The alliance of the cancelled
Cancellation creates instant trust between survivors. The people who have been through it bond faster and trust each other more...
BTS
The event naming philosophy
Every SLIST event name is a decision, not a placeholder. The naming convention carries the brand’s DNA in a way...
Scene
The first responders rave
The concept is deliberately provocative: a fundraiser rave for police, FDNY, and paramedics. The same institutions that normally shut raves...
Scene
The smoking ban changed the music
There is a theory — developed from observing dancefloor behavior across two countries — that smoking bans on dancefloors directly...
Scene
There are a million highly skilled bedroom DJs who will never see the light of day
There are a million highly skilled bedroom DJs who will never see the light of day. Not because they lack...
Scene
Why photographers should never be on the dancefloor
A photographer with a flash on the dancefloor is a violation of the space. Not a minor inconvenience — a...
Guides
Anti-FOMO design
Most event marketing is built on manufactured urgency. Countdown timers. “Selling out fast” overlays. Tier pricing designed to create panic....
Guides
Bar operations at raves
Bar revenue is the number that determines whether a venue invites you back. Not ticket sales, not Instagram impressions, not...
BTS
Community was never the goal. It was the weapon.
The narrative around community building in nightlife is almost always sentimental. We are building a family. We are creating a...
BTS
Controversy as fuel: the anti-fragile brand
SLIST has survived five cancel wars. Three in Mexico City, two in New York. Not survived in the sense of...
Guides
DM outreach for events
DM outreach is the highest-conversion marketing channel for underground events, and also the one most promoters execute poorly. The difference...
Guides
Door staff management
Door staff is the first and last impression of your event. A bad door experience — slow lines, rude bouncers,...
BTS
Every brand decision was deliberate, not drift
There is a common narrative about brands that break through: they got lucky. They stumbled into the right aesthetic. They...
Dark Culture
Gossip is Google reviews for the underground
Gossip is a necessary evil and tool. Something to keep us all honest with each other. That is the position,...
Guides
How to survive 5 cancel campaigns
Five cancel campaigns in two years. Discord servers dedicated to destroying the brand. Memes of the founder on the floor...
Dark Culture
I learned to DJ so I could avoid socializing
That is the most attractive thing about DJing for me — being part of the party without having to socialize...
Dark Culture
I worried therapy would take away my creative energy
I need therapy. I have only been listening to dark stuff for a while. But I am worried therapy will...
Dark Culture
Platforms come and go. Email addresses are portable.
Instagram can delete your account tomorrow. TikTok can get banned. Twitter can change the algorithm and bury your reach. Every...
Uncategorized
The competitor playbook: never name them, just outbook them
The instinct when a competitor attacks is to fire back publicly. Name them, expose them, rally your audience against them....
Scene
The queer scene’s hypocrisy problem
The queer community built large parts of the music scene’s infrastructure — clubs, safe spaces, bookings, entire genres of dance...
Scene
The scene is a meat grinder
The rave scene chews people up and spits them out. Not the audience — the operators. The DJs, the promoters,...
BTS
We cut a DJ’s set after 15 minutes
Fifteen minutes into a set, the decision was already made. The DJ was playing YouTube-ripped tracks through a sound system...
Scene
Meritocracy vs identity lineups
The question that splits the NYC underground in half: should DJ lineups reflect the demographics of the scene, or should...
Guides
Why we donate 10% of every event to charity
We donate 5% of ticket profits after $1,500 in ad spend to a harm-reduction nonprofit. We have also donated $1,500+...
Scene
4am hard stops are killing techno
New York City forces most nightlife venues to close at 4am. Some close at 3am. A handful have permits that...
Dark Culture
Dark taste vs dark culture
Dark culture is the aesthetic category. Goth, industrial, darkwave — it existed as a named genre well before techno absorbed...
Dark Culture
How harm reduction became a brand signal
On-site safety infrastructure at every event is not a marketing decision. It is an operational decision that became a marketing...
Dark Culture
How the only South Asian promoter in Bushwick techno built differently
Me as the only South Asian guy promoting techno in Bushwick. That sentence appeared in two separate conversations with two...
Guides
How to negotiate with venues when you have nothing
Every venue negotiation I’ve done started from a position of having nothing. No track record at the venue. No guaranteed...
BTS
Sober at your own events is underrated
The starkest documentation of what happens when the operator drinks at his own event is a NYE incident that I...
BTS
The 10% show rate disaster that changed everything
I gave out 200 guest list tickets. Twenty people showed up. A 10% show rate. Two hundred invitations sent into...
BTS
The ego-first flyer principle
The single highest-leverage flyer design principle at SLIST is not about typography, layout, or color. It is about ego. Specifically:...
BTS
The first 15 events bled money
The first SLIST event at 494 Broadway in SoHo drew 60 people with a week of promotion. Total ticket sales:...
BTS
The guest list economics nobody talks about
The standard take on guest lists is that they are lost revenue. Every name on the list is a ticket...
Scene
The rave scene is quietly conservative
The rave scene markets itself as radically progressive. Open-minded. Inclusive. A space where all backgrounds converge on the dancefloor. The...
BTS
The red pill: why SLIST uses red
Every SLIST flyer, ad, and branded piece of content runs through a red filter. Not because red is a cool...
Dark Culture
The serial optimizer: same brain, different domain
The pattern is locked in. Enter a domain. Learn the system deeply. Identify the inefficiencies. Build systems to fix them....
BTS
The venue ladder: from SoHo lofts to Brooklyn Monarch
Every venue SLIST has operated in represented a different tier of the operation. The progression was not random. Each move...
BTS
The WhatsApp architecture behind the brand
Before SMS lists, before email CRM, before any ticketing platform, the entire SLIST operation ran on WhatsApp. The community architecture...
Guides
What to expect at your first techno event
If you’ve never been to a techno event, the unknown is the hardest part. Not the music, not the crowd,...
Scene
Why promoters who cosplay as socialist idealists are about to get eaten
Almost every promoter in the NYC underground tries to cosplay as a socialist idealist. They adopt the language, post the...
Guides
Why Thursday events are worth losing money on
Thursday events do not make money. That is by design. We run them at a loss because the strategic value...
BTS
Why we don’t post set times
No set times. No artist bios. No FOMO overlays on the flyer. No captions on the Instagram post. Every omission...
BTS
Clout is the ultimate currency
In the underground scene, there is a currency more liquid than cash: clout. It opens venues. It books headliners at...
BTS
Creating funnels is my biggest passion
I said this to someone once, completely unprompted, and it is probably the most honest thing I have ever said...
Shitposts
How to be a Tyrant changed my life
Netflix dropped “How to Be a Tyrant” and I watched the whole thing in one sitting. Took notes. Not ironically....
Guides
How we built a 9,000-person SMS list
The SMS list started at zero in early 2024. By January 2026, it was over 9,000 contacts — past attendees,...
Shitposts
I live for cringe
I live for cringe. No other emotion is as pure. Cringe is the only honest reaction left. Everything else is...
Shitposts
Impersonated 12 times and counting
Current impersonation count: 3 on Reddit. 4 on Discord. 2 on Instagram. 2 on SoundCloud. 1 on Radiate. 12 fake...
Guides
Payment delays, bank freezes
Payment processing issues will hit you at the worst possible time. Not when business is slow and you can absorb...
Shitposts
SLIST was right about everything
SLIST was right about everything. Right about the promoters who were cosplaying as community leaders while pocketing DJ fees. Right...
BTS
Solo operator: why I fired my team and kept the brand
In 2024, I tried building a team. Shared actual ownership. Gave collaborators real stakes in the operation. Every time SLIST...
BTS
Teaching kids to DJ: the tutoring business that trained a promoter
Before SLIST existed, before Mexico City, before the first rave, the business was teaching. Middle school and high school kids,...
BTS
The business partner split
Eight months. That is how long the business partner was involved before he tried to restructure the entire operation around...
Shitposts
The Diogenes of Bushwick
Diogenes lived in a barrel, rejected every social convention, told Alexander the Great to move because he was blocking the...
Guides
The guest list growth hack
Guest lists are not freebies. They’re the most effective growth mechanism in event promotion — if you structure them as...
Dark Culture
The rave-to-politics pipeline has a date: 2040
The date is 2040. Not approximate. Not aspirational. Specific. The same way an event has a date and a venue...
Guides
The WordPress tech stack
Running an event brand on WordPress sounds like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Every other promoter is on Squarespace,...
Guides
Ticketing platform showdown
We have used four ticketing platforms across 37+ events. Each one taught us something about conversion rates, data ownership, audience...
Guides
What headliner DJs actually cost
DJ fees are the most opaque part of event budgets. Every promoter guesses, every DJ inflates, and nobody publishes actual...
Shitposts
What is based may never be cancelled
What is based may never be cancelled. Five cancel campaigns. Two countries. Three years. Still here. Bigger than before every...
Guides
WhatsApp community governance
WhatsApp communities were the foundation of everything we built in Mexico City. At peak, we managed a 1,800-person announcement group,...
Shitposts
10 for the wolf, 3 for the shepherd, 1 for the sheep
10 for the wolf. 3 for the shepherd. 1 for the sheep. The wolf hunts. The wolf risks everything. The...
Dark Culture
Cancel culture doesn’t work with real techno people
The techno underground has a natural immune system against cancel culture. Not because it is morally superior or politically enlightened,...
Guides
Converting competitors’ audiences
Your competitors have audiences that already care about the same music you promote. Those people are pre-qualified — they attend...
Guides
Dancefloor dynamics: gender ratio
Nobody in the underground scene wants to talk about gender ratio on the dancefloor. It sounds like nightclub marketing from...
Shitposts
Department of Goth Girls
I want to be the guy that can send goth girls to parties instead of complete randoms. That’s the mission...
BTS
Every buyer becomes a promoter
The traditional promoter model requires manual onboarding. You find someone willing to promote, create a code for them, explain the...
Guides
How to book DJs when you have no reputation
Nobody wants to play for a promoter with zero events, zero followers, and zero budget. This is the cold start...
Guides
How to evaluate a venue for underground events
A venue can make or destroy an event before the first DJ plugs in. After running shows at warehouses, hotel...
BTS
I never wanted to throw events
The most honest thing I can say about SLIST is that I never wanted to throw events. I wanted to...
Dark Culture
I taught myself everything with ChatGPT and spite
Four hundred and eleven conversations with an AI taught me more about running a business than any degree I almost...
BTS
I want to be famous but I hate my fans
There is a contradiction at the center of this project that I have never resolved, and I am not sure...
Shitposts
Music taste is character, not preference
I would probably break up with someone over not liking techno. Sounds extreme. It isn’t. Music taste isn’t what you...
Dark Culture
Spite was the ignition. Infrastructure is the engine.
There is a moment in every revenge plot where the plot gets bigger than the revenge. Most people never reach...
Dark Culture
The cult started in New Jersey, not Mexico
Everyone assumes this started in Mexico City. The timeline supports that assumption — CDMX is where the first events happened,...
Dark Culture
The loneliest profession in the world
Rave promoter is the loneliest profession in the world. You are surrounded by 500 people who came because of decisions...
BTS
The solo operator manifesto
SLIST has no employees. No co-founders. No board. One person runs the brand, the events, the bookings, the marketing, the...
Shitposts
This is my stress outlet that causes me the most stress
This is my stress outlet that causes me the most stress. Think about that for a second. The thing I...
Shitposts
Transparent dictatorship is the only management style
Too much democracy is a problem. Had a business partner who introduced voting structures. Brought on team members without my...
Shitposts
Why we ran out of beer at our best event
Our best event ever. 290+ guests scanned. Bar rang $4,162 on a $4,000 minimum. The dancefloor was packed from midnight...
Dark Culture
75% of the world doesn’t like dark music. Good.
Seventy-five percent of the US population does not like listening to dark music. There is statistically no point in trying...
BTS
Ads sell more tickets than almost any DJ
This is the sentence that ended a decade of conventional wisdom in event promotion: ads sell more tickets than almost...
Guides
Brand building for dark culture
Dark culture is not a genre. It is a mood constraint that allows genre flexibility while maintaining identity coherence. We...
Guides
Community over clout: why email lists beat Instagram
Instagram followers is the worst metric to obsess over. We learned this the hard way when Meta permanently suspended our...
Dark Culture
Dark music saved my life (and killed a friend)
I was asking myself why I liked dark music, and the answer surprised me. It was not about genre or...
BTS
Drama sells like nothing else
Most promoters treat drama like a disease. Something to suppress, manage, contain. I treated it like gasoline. SLIST was born...
Dark Culture
From rave promoter to political candidate: the pipeline
Running a rave teaches you everything you need to know about running a campaign. The voter is just a raver...
Guides
How to negotiate a venue deal
Every venue deal I’ve signed started from a position of weakness. No track record, no guarantee, no leverage. The venues...
Guides
Meta ads for events: the three-tier funnel
Most event promoters run one ad, point it at a broad audience, and hope the algorithm figures it out. That...
Uncategorized
The 10-second cold ad that converts
The 48-video funnel system we designed had one anchor format: a 9.9-second vertical cold ad. That is the top-of-funnel creative...
BTS
The community is the headliner
The conventional model in nightlife is simple: book a bigger DJ, sell more tickets. The headliner is the product. The...
BTS
The contrarian principle
The underground rave scene in New York City runs on an unspoken consensus: say the right things, signal the right...
BTS
The crowd that handles your worst and dances harder
There is a type of crowd that most promoters never build because they are too busy chasing numbers. It is...
Guides
The event naming test
Most event promoters name their events whatever sounds cool in the moment. That is a mistake. The name of your...
BTS
The events are the loss leader
Most promoters measure success by whether an event made money. We measure success by whether an event grew the asset....
BTS
The guest list is a precision instrument
The guest list at SLIST is not a perk. It is not a favor. It is not generosity. It is...
Guides
Ticket pricing strategy
Ticket pricing is not a math problem. It is a psychology problem with math consequences. Every pricing decision sends a...
BTS
Whoever controls the digital infrastructure controls the brand
In 2024, my co-founder tried to push me out of SLIST. He introduced voting structures I never agreed to. He...
BTS
Why SMS is worth more than your Instagram following
In January 2026, we had 8,000 Instagram followers and 7,000 SMS subscribers. Those two numbers look comparable. They are not....
Shitposts
Apology tours are how you lose everything
Can’t be caught going on apology tours or else everyone loses faith in the project. The moment you apologize under...
Shitposts
BPM is P&L engineering
People think tempo is an artistic choice. It is. But it’s also a financial one. At 140 BPM, people drink...
Guides
Building a rave community from a group chat
SLIST didn’t start as an event brand. It started as a WhatsApp group in Mexico City for sharing rave flyers....
Don’t call me a POC
Don’t call me a POC.
Guides
Event economics 101
Most event promoters have no idea where their money goes. They throw a party, hope it works out, and either...
Shitposts
From shitpost blog to software company
SLIST started as a shitpost blog on Instagram. An anonymous account in Mexico City posting about which raves were good...
BTS
How we book DJs (and why most promoters get it wrong)
Most promoters book DJs by scrolling Instagram, checking follower counts, and offering whoever has the biggest number a flat fee...
Shitposts
I love cancel wars
If you know anything about me, I LOVE cancel wars. I make that shit my bitch. I believe in escalating....
Guides
Merch as revenue bridge
Most event promoters treat merch as an afterthought. A box of leftover t-shirts under the DJ booth, sold between sets...
BTS
Rave organizing feels more like a software project
I said this to myself somewhere around event number fifteen, after spending six hours debugging a ticket tracking spreadsheet at...
Guides
Set time strategy: how to program a 12-hour event
Programming a 12-hour event is not the same as programming a 4-hour club night stretched out. The energy arc, the...
Shitposts
Shitposting is the only honest marketing
Every other promoter in NYC posts the same shit. Ethereal flyer. “Immersive experience.” “Safe space.” “Community gathering.” It all reads...
Guides
SMS marketing for events: the $4.28 cost-per-ticket-sale channel
SMS is the cheapest acquisition channel in event marketing. Not email. Not Instagram ads. Not influencer posts. A text message...
Dark Culture
Spite as fuel: the revenge plot that became an institution
Every founder has an origin story. Most of them are polished. Mine starts with a guest list rejection and a...
BTS
The arrest was the best thing that happened for credibility
In July 2025, I got arrested. The event got raided. The cancel campaigns hit peak velocity simultaneously. By every conventional...
BTS
The commission-based DJ pay model
The standard model in nightlife promotion is simple: you pay DJs a flat fee, they show up, they play, they...
Dark Culture
The dead friend who started it all
She died after I cut off the friendship. I had hooked up with her and then ended things abruptly. The...
Uncategorized
The ‘everywhere effect’
The goal is not to be everywhere. The goal is to feel everywhere. On a modest ad budget, you can...
Guides
The introvert’s guide to building a rave empire
Event organizing might be the loneliest profession in the world. Surrounded by 800 people every weekend, and completely isolated in...
BTS
What dark actually means
Every promoter in New York will tell you their events are “dark.” They slap a black flyer on Instagram, book...
BTS
Extract the darkest shit people normally don’t play elsewhere
There is a single sentence that defines everything we book for. It is the mission statement that every DJ hears...
Guides
Running a weekly event series
A weekly event series is the single highest-leverage move an underground promoter can make. It is also the fastest way...
Guides
How to throw your first underground event with zero budget
In March 2024, we threw our third event in a SoHo loft with $2,500 total — most of it borrowed,...
Guides
Navigating NYC nightlife politics
Every city’s nightlife scene has a political layer that nobody talks about publicly but everyone navigates privately. NYC’s underground electronic...
Music
Ambient
Ambient music is a genre that emphasizes atmosphere and tone over traditional musical structure and rhythm. It’s often described as...
Values
Access to guest lists
Over the course of 2023, Slist distributed more than 2,300 tickets to at least 100 different raves. A policy of...
Music
Alternative Rock
Alternative rock is a genre of music that emerged in the 1980s as an alternative to mainstream rock, often characterized...
Events
Lee Eye en Astro: entre lo íntimo y el show
Cuando terminó la noche de Lee Eye en Astro, pensamos en lo raro que es encontrar este nivel de intimidad...
Updates
Why I stopped DJing
March 2026 was my last month behind the decks as SLIST. Three final sets, then I handed it off. The...
BTS
The Monarch deal: how 50/50 changed everything
Every venue deal before Brooklyn Monarch followed the same pattern. Either you rent the room and take all the risk....
Updates
From 60 people to 837: the growth timeline
This is the institutional record. Every number verified, every milestone documented. Not because growth stories need to be told —...
Updates
The consulting pivot
It started on Discord. Free advice. Someone asked how to get booked as a DJ in New York. I wrote...
Updates
The residency program: why I killed it and why it worked
Last month I disbanded the SLIST residency program. The scene politics had gotten toxic enough that the structure was doing...
Guides
How to Start Your Own “S LIST”
1. start by following atleast 1 DJ/event organizer/promoter 2. follow every relevant account they tag in their posts/stories 3. browse...
Updates
When hotels start calling you
For the first year and a half of SLIST, every venue relationship started the same way: I found them. Cold...
Updates
How we went from underground to legal (and why)
Someone asked me in August: “So just no more DIY raves then?” Yeah. One word. No qualifiers. No “maybe when...
Guides
Promoter Pro Tips
1. If you want to promote via stories, try to write a couple sentences explaining why YOU yourself are going....
BTS
The insight that started a sobriety arc
In a moment of clarity, I realized I want to stop drinking. The sentence that came through was simple: “I...
BTS
The arrest paradox: how getting locked up opened every door
I told someone the night it happened: “This is either going to ruin me or 10x the whole brand and...
Values
I got arrested for throwing a rave. Here’s what I learned about policing.
Editor’s note (added 2026): The events described here took place in summer 2025. The narcotics charge was dismissed. SLIST operates...
Events
Event 37: arrested, charged, and back stronger
On July 12, 2025, two hours into our 37th event, NYPD and FDNY came through the door. They shut everything...
Guides
How to Promote Events and Sell Tickets as an SLIST Promoter in 2025
You’re not just selling tickets — you’re shaping the future of the rave scene.SLIST promoters aren’t background players. You’re community...
BTS
The Grecia model: how CDMX runs without the founder
The question that determines whether a brand becomes an institution or stays a personality cult is simple: does it survive...
Recommendations
Books that built the SLIST worldview
SLIST is a rave company that thinks about power structures, covenant theology, geopolitics, and the mechanics of how movements are...
BTS
The framework: how SLIST actually grows
Most collectives talk about growth like it’s a marketing problem. More followers, bigger headliners, shinier production. SLIST operates on a...
Events
The Silo Thursday that changed everything
A couple weeks before this event, Silo Brooklyn randomly invited us to organize a Thursday night. We weren’t sure why....
BTS
The EJ theft: when your co-organizer robs your party
I was naive. That’s the short version. EJ was a co-organizer during the early NYC planning phase. We were building...
Dark Culture
The SLIST doctrine
Every organization has values. Most of them are corporate filler — aspirational nonsense designed to look good on a website...
BTS
Whoever holds the contracts holds the party
March 2024. TAT3 — Techno Afters Trap 3 — at Galospace NYC. I’d booked 10 out of 12 DJs personally....
BTS
The Basement door rejection that started everything
My grandmother died a month before this happened. I had a pile of regrets I hadn’t dealt with. The kind...
Values
Going against the grain
In December 2023, SLIST threw an industrial techno event in SoHo. The conventional wisdom said this was a ridiculous idea....
Values
Diversity of thought
The underground music scene has built a reputation on inclusion. Open doors, safe spaces, radical acceptance. These are foundational values,...
BTS
The 800-person WhatsApp collapse
In September 2023, I deleted the biggest rave WhatsApp group in Mexico City. 800 people. Gone. It had gotten too...
BTS
How we democratized the guest list
Guest lists in the rave scene have always operated on the same principle: know the right people or pay full...
Recommendations
TV shows for when the afters end
View the full IMDB list It’s 6am. The music stopped an hour ago or maybe three. You’re home but not...
Updates
The first Patreon subscriber
Before SLIST had a website, before we had ticket links or commission models or any of the infrastructure that exists...
BTS
The Nalgoticas: weaponizing gender imbalance
The rave scene has a gender imbalance problem. Too many guys, not enough women, and that imbalance makes it harder...
BTS
About: The meaning behind sli.st
What does sli.st stand for? The concept of sli.st has gone through many changes. Therefore it’s probably best to explain...
BTS
Experiment: Negotiating the best discount codes
I want to negotiate bulk-like discounts for my base. If someone sees a discount posted on this website, I want...
Dark Culture
About: Why I share curated entertainment lists
Sharing recommendations with like minded people is the best sli.st is a reference to S tier lists. I’ve found that...
Recommendations
Dark films that shaped SLIST
View the full IMDB list Dark film is not horror. Horror wants to scare you. Dark film wants to sit...
BTS
The Frankie partnership
The most important operational relationship in SLIST’s CDMX era started the way most things in this scene start: someone showed...
BTS
Gig: 1-2 sets a week for free stays.
I’ve been playing here once or twice a week for the past 4 months (July 23rd time of writing). I...
Values
Tastes over activism
SLIST books DJs for one reason: their taste. Not their follower count. Not their gender. Not their politics. Not the...
Recommendations
Dark albums that belong in every DJ’s library
Darker music makes me feel nostalgic and cathartic. I enjoy those feelings. That’s the root. This is not a genre...
BTS
The Rave Pass: from private Instagram to digital guest list
Guest lists are broken. Names scrawled on paper at 2am. Promoters scrolling through WhatsApp threads looking for confirmations. Door staff...
BTS
Gig: Invited on the day. Best start to the new year.
This story has a lot of funny parts, but starts off a little sad. The days before this event was...
Updates
Huge Redesign. Removed Flyer Section. Flyers now on Instagram only. More content.
Homepage: The homepage has been completely redesigned from scratch. All the major pages are linked from the homepage. My goal...
Updates
New navigation and homepage. New reflection posts. Less redundancy. Fewer main navigation items.
Homepage: The entire website should now be more intuitive. At least a couple visitors did not realize that the numbers...
Guides
About: The list of pro raver tips
Why? I think I can offer a bunch of practical tips to my fellow ravers and help them avoid a...
BTS
About: The names on the S List
“SLi.ST” or “S List” was originally a play on the word “guestlist”. This is a different type of guestlist- something...
Updates
Steady progress, new S page content, more useful homepage, less redundancy
homepage: Another big update. I’ve decided to go back to an older design philosophy regarding the homepage. It’s now specifically...
Guides
Curated List of Events
I currently use my stories to share most upcoming events. I then sort each story/flyer by date and into highlights....
BTS
About: Why I’m writing about past gigs
I want to record my DJ experiences so that I can reflect on my progress in the future. I think...
Updates
This website will never be finished.
OCT 21 7pm: Big update.Playing with colors.Higher contrast with red.Membership registrations are finally open.New sections.50+ flyers added today.Analytics looking good.More...
BTS
Gig: First flyer with my face! (alt flyer)
I was very excited about this event. The location was super chill, some of my favorite DJs had played here,...
BTS
Gig: My first time on a flyer!
1 or 2 months before, I began learning how to DJ from one of the darkest dark techno DJs in...
Values
Radical inclusivity
The world that built every tool SLIST uses — every social platform, every ticketing system, every sound system, every piece...
Values
Shitposting is not a joke. It’s the whole strategy.
SLIST started as a shitpost blog. Not an events company. Not a media brand. A shitpost blog in Mexico City...
Values
Anti-gatekeeping
If we want everyone to be treated equally on the dance floor, we must first treat everyone equally at the...
Dark Culture
Dark culture across all mediums
Cultures express shared attitudes, values, and practices. Dark culture is a subculture that explores the human condition, prompts introspection, investigates...
BTS
How SLIST started: a foreigner, a guest list, and a grudge
SLIST started because two women in Mexico City wouldn’t put me on their guest list. That’s one version. Here’s another:...
BTS
The origin story
Everyone loves a good origin story. SLIST was founded in Mexico City on July 10, 2021 by Saimon Sekta —...
Updates
Update ‘2’: Registrations coming in. Flyers can now be clicked on. Lots of to-dos.
OCT 23 6:50AM: Finally made the flyers clickale for zoomed in views. People are signing up for future perks. The...
Recommendations
Manga and anime for people who like dark music
View the full MyAnimeList SLIST started as an anime blog. That’s not a joke — it’s the origin story. Before...
Dark Culture
I threw up on the dance floor and fell in love with rave culture
I started raving in early 2021. I was 24, chain-smoking through a quarter-life crisis, looking for parties during the pandemic...