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...
Tag
nyc
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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
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...
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...
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
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
Anti-gatekeeping
If we want everyone to be treated equally on the dance floor, we must first treat everyone equally at the...
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...