Slap & Tickle was recently voted Miami's best weekly party. It was founded by Pirate Stereo, Santiago Caballero, and Panic Bomber over two years ago and is now hosted at Bardot. The challenges of throwing a party as large as S&T on a weekly basis are very prevalent. It takes a team of dedicated music lovers as well as talented promoters to get something of this size and magnitude off the ground, let alone keep it going week after week. Luckily the group behind the scenes at Miami's favorite Tuesday night party are just that: DJ's first and driven industry professionals second. Though while the group is doing what they love, they did admit to a few challenges, but clearly they handle them with poise and grace.
One would imagine that running a weekly would get stale after a while, that the crowd would get boring, and the music would get repetitive. But every week we look at ourselves are we’re stunned that none of us know where these party goers have come from, that there’s always fresh blood coming through. Because we’re DJ’s first, and promoters second, the music is always new and exciting, we’re always hunting for new tunes and new styles to try out, so there’s a high energy. So perhaps the biggest challenge would be having the energy to keep up with our own momentum!
Panic Bomber, one of the resident DJ's as well as founders of the event expressed surprise when the event continued to do well, as Tuesday nights do not exactly scream ‘party'. That is what is special about Slap and Tickle though. The talent also runs the behind the scenes work, making the staff of the party the perfect fit for keeping the weekly event fresh. The sweet'n'sour title of Slap & Tickle is just ridiculous enough to lure people in without scaring them away. The name comes from a rhyme that was put together before S&T moved to Bardot.
It started out as a weekly party at a different venue that’s still close to our hearts, Slap & Tickle at The Electric Pickle, so it had a pleasant, sexy rhyme to it.
Along with an awesome weekly showcase of talented DJ's and good spirits (of both variety) Slap & Tickle brings along a unique philosophy. Everyone behind the decks gets to play exactly what they love. The booth is filled with both local up and comers as well as international super stars and nobody has been kicked off the stage for being to underground. Residents get a chance to play out new music to gauge crowd reaction, while the big names have a chance to push the envelope of what they usually play.
We’re all DJ’s and producers first, so we’re always super excited to spin and get our friends on to hear new music, but bringing in outside talent is natural. We basically just look at what we’re already playing at the moment, for example, oh, we love spinning Waze & Odyssey, so we already know that it does well on the dance floor, so it’s really a no-brainer to bring in these big cats and let them really flex their sound out.
Staying relevant in an ever changing scene takes talent. And a damn good business plan. Having both, the team at S&T and Bardot are looking to the future. They have some big and innovative plans, but want to sit on them for little bit to make sure things are good to go before announcing them to the public, as they want to avoid a retraction statement. Contests as well as new and exciting experiences are soon to come though. The energy it takes to gather talent, promote and perform on a weekly basis is demanding. But like they say, ‘when you do what you love, you will never have to work a day in your life'. It seems like Slap & Tickle took that saying very seriously as they have developed a career that perfectly aligns with their passion.
Two of our veterans have moved on to different cities, Troy Kurtz to LA and Panic Bomber to NYC, so we’re starting to do events in those cities as well, it’s a natural expansion and extension of what we’ve been doing. We have our podcast which is doing quite well, and we have some exciting plans for much more content for the party goers and everyone on the internet as well, but personally I hate hearing people say, “I’m going to do x,” and then x never comes to fruition, so I’d rather not speculate other than to say content, content, content.
