Today we’d like to introduce you to Tobias Krause.
Tobias, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
It’s been a long journey up to this point. Like most of my friends in high school, I picked up an instrument – the bass guitar – but I succumbed to the fact that they were all better than I was at actually playing it, so I focused more on the promotional side of things like creating a website, booking the shows and trying to run the business side. Long after that, I got into writing and ended up getting my degree from Metropolitan State University in journalism with a minor in cinema studies. I was constantly getting yelled at by my professors for writing about music. I focused so much of my attention on Denver’s local music scene because I was so fascinated by it. I began working for Two Parts – a marketing, production, and promotions company and was asked to help produce the Westword ( Denver’s alt-weekly ) Music Showcase back in 2015. After that year, I ran into the former Event Director of the Underground Music Showcase – Kendall Smith – and kinda begged him to bring me on to the UMS. I helped Westword for another year and then jumped ship to join the UMS as a talent buyer and showcase coordinator at the end of 2016. I helped Kendall in 2017, and after his departure, Two Parts got into the mix and bought the festival, and I became the next and current director of the Underground Music Showcase.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Rocky Roads the entire way. The event planning, production, and promotion business are full of curveballs. You can never accurately plan anything and this world, and this business is full of variables that you constantly need to be ready to reevaluate, plan, and execute on the drop of a dime. While it’s been an emotional rollercoaster along the way, the journey to today has been an exciting one. For the most part – no one has any idea how much time, effort, sweat, tears go into planning something of this magnitude and it’s generally a thankless job – but, for some reason, that’s what keeps me going each day.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Underground Music Showcase story. Tell us more about it.
Two Parts is an experiential company in so many different ways, and I’ve been there for six years seeing it grow and develop each month. We started in a one-room office in a house in Uptown and eventually moved down to Broadway ( where the UMS takes place ) and quickly outgrew that to move to Curtis Park where we currently reside in a large collaborative office, and two smaller ones in an amazing building called The Temple. Under the Two Parts name, we have a few companies that reside under that hat: Two Parts Music, LLC, The Passport Program, our agency side of things that works with a slew of clients, and ultimately our production team that somehow manages to concept, create, and execute dozens of events each year. We founded the Denver Flea, which is now called “Fetch” and have produced countless events both internally and externally over the years. One of the newer events we’re super proud of is called “Far Out Factory,” which we produced for Organa Brands, and it was quickly dubbed “the event of the year” for 2018. It was an immersive art experience that took over a random warehouse in the Cole neighborhood, which was incredibly challenging to navigate. But, we did it, and we’re proud of that outcome.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Luck is a tricky thing to rely on. Sometimes things work in our favor, and sometimes things go terribly wrong. However, we’ve been fortunate to produce some incredible events and create some incredible programs over the years – I’d call that fortunate luck that I’m very, very proud of.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2400 Curtis St. Studio 6, Denver, CO
- Website: www.twoparts.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/twopartsco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/twopartsco/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TwoPartsCo
Image Credit:
Nikki Rae
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