Interview: Rafe Offer, co-founder of Sofar Sounds

What was the motivation and vision behind developing Sofar Sounds?

A couple of friends and I were at gig in Soho in London and felt like something was missing — the connection to the artist and the music was lost through everyone’s chatter, their use of cell phones, the clinking of glasses. We decided to invite some musician friends over to our flat to play for a small group of friends. Eight people turned up and had a really magical evening. Everyone was so still and focused on the music — you could hear the clock ticking in the background, the room was so quiet.

House concerts weren’t a new concept, but soon strangers were getting in touch, wanting to be a part of our little movement now known as Sofar Sounds. After London, it spread to New York, Paris and Los Angeles. And once we started posting videos of performances, more people around the world got in touch. Today, we have Sofar gigs happening every day in over 360 cities around the world. 

Sofar Sounds is growing rapidly, while mid/small sized live music venues are supposedly disappearing. Would you say that Sofar Sounds is offering an alternative lifeline for the live music industry?

It’s a lovely thought, the idea of Sofar being an alternative lifeline to the live music industry. Our hope, though, is that both can thrive. We try to open up the possibilities of what a venue can be, keeping the experience intimate and the audience attentive. But because Sofar rarely announces who is playing in advance and it's a taster session — a set is just 20 minutes, or four songs on average — we hope that we can point our audiences to go hear the artists they discover at Sofar again, at more traditional venues.

Sofar Sounds has partnered with a number of brands. What are the key benefits for a brand in aligning with an entertainment platform?

From a brand’s perspective, the key upside in partnering with Sofar is that you’re engaging with so much more than just an entertainment platform. You’re tapping into a global community. When we work with brands, we do so on ambitious projects, ideated together, that truly engage that community across not only media and content, but also (and crucially) experiential. What other platforms do you know that can deliver unique, authentic on-the-ground production and audiences across 360+ different cities worldwide?

You’ve recently partnered with Amnesty International and Airbnb. Could you tell us a little bit about what makes these brand partnerships such a good fit?   

When seeking out new partners, we’re always in search of those who have similar brand values as our own. And our partnerships with Amnesty International and Airbnb are great examples of that — they share the same DNA as Sofar in the sense that both are about being part of a global community.

We recently held our largest campaign to date, Give a Home, with Amnesty International. We held over 250 shows in 60 countries, in just 24 hours — all with the goal of raising awareness for the global refugee crisis, alongside donations for Amnesty. We thought it made sense to connect the fact that Sofar happens most frequently in people’s homes with Amnesty's focus on getting refugees out of harm's way, and eventually back to a home themselves. Give a Home saw artists like Ed Sheeran, The Naked And Famous, Moby and Jessie Ware perform in people’s living rooms. Amnesty helped link us up with refugee artists and speakers. Over 200,000 guests around the world attended and supported the day.

And as for Airbnb, their new Experiences platform gives travelers the opportunity to experience cool things in the cities they’ve visiting. What cooler thing to do than hear some local music in a secret setting? For Sofar, we’re keen to welcome in more people — especially travelers — to hear new local acts and make them feel at home wherever in the world they may be.

You slightly changed the ticket acquisition method with Airbnb. Rather than the usual selected invite list, there’s an option to skip the allocation process by buying tickets through Airbnb’s app. Is this part of adapting to a new business model? And, do you think it changes the Sofar Sounds experience?

We changed our ticketing process for our partnership with Airbnb because travelers (Airbnb’s core audience) have a very small window of opportunity to attend. We want to give them the chance to “get in” to a Sofar during their trip. We don’t think this changes the experience too much — perhaps we see a more diverse audience of people from around the world in a living room, which is great! — but we always monitor changes like this for any effect.

How do you see Sofar Sounds evolving in the future and what role can technology play in expanding the Sofar Sounds experience? 

We hope that Sofar guests and artists can travel with us. Guests can visit different parts of their own cities, or find us when they’re on business trips or holidays as something unique to do. And artists can tour with us, gaining a new audience around their country, and eventually, the world. We believe our app — which we’ve just launched in the U.K. and parts of the States — can evolve in a way where people can use tech to find a Sofar gig, and plan their experience in a city anywhere in the world.

Interested in finding out more? Check out their website, Sofar Sounds, to apply for tickets or follow them on social media, @sofarsounds.