05/05/2021
Reboot Events have organised some of the best-known parties on the Emerald Isle in the past couple of years. Their dedication to the electronic music scene is parallel to their down to earth approach of unity via the love of music. In such a short space of time, they have been able to gather such widely appraised support and create a brand that that is so versatile, it almost cannot be stopped except by the sudden burst of that first kick drum that you hear on a sound system. We at Project Radio reached out to the group and were lucky enough to get an interview with Jamie Harris, one of the two co-founders of Reboot Events as well as being their Creative & Marketing Director, in order to find out more about the group.
What is Reboot Events in a nutshell?
Reboot Events started out as a concept to create the craziest parties in a safe environment; A place where everyone can come together and party as a community. A place to give opportunities to those who may not have been given a chance elsewhere and to welcome others in as one of our own. We try our best to welcome everyone in as a family, from the artists to the people that attend our shows. This is an ethos that we have tried to maintain from the start to help up and coming DJs & producers and to shine a light on small town local talent.
Who are the founders of the Reboot, who is currently involved and what are your roles?
The initial founders of Reboot consist of me (Jamie Harris) and Michael (MD Duffy).Our team has since expanded as me and MD ran Reboot together for its first year or so, and once we started to branch out of county Meath (Ireland), we needed help. Since then, we have since recruited a rock-solid team that in total consists of:
MD Duffy (The Boss).
Jamie Harris (Creative & Marketing Director).
Dean Elso (Social Media Manager).
Conor Mac (Event & Merchandise Manager).
Barry Madden (role-in-training).
Miss Shona Brophy (role-in-training), who has recently joined our team.
What does the name 'Reboot' mean and how did you come up with that?
We were back and forth for a good week or so while thinking about a name. We had come up with many different concepts, but we went with Reboot in the end because we wanted to Reboot the electronic music scene in our area and bring people together for some very special parties. We have definitely been able to do that and have many more to come once we are given the green light with events in Ireland.
What's Reboot’s origin story and what was the reason for starting up?
So, Reboot Events came about when myself and Michael (MD Duffy) met at a rave a couple years back after a Kerri Chandler show in the old District 8 in Dublin City centre (before it was demolished and moved to its current venue in Swords, Dublin). We just really hit it off from the get-go. After meeting a few times to play together on his old show on Phever Radio, we eventually came up with the idea of starting a night and Reboot was born! We kicked things off by doing some small shows in towns around county Meath in Ireland, which then took off fairly quickly and soon we ended up booking in some of the biggest names in the game to bigger venues. We got to the place we are today with a lot of hard work and effort from our overly dedicated team and the amazing crews who support us and come to our shows.
Did you guys have any prior experience before starting up - What were some of the things you never could have prepared for when it came to doing what you do and how did you overcome them, as well as advice for others who want to do the same?
Prior to kicking things off between myself and MD, we had plenty of experience as well as knowledge when it came down to it. At the time of formation, I was running club nights between Hangar and South William (which ended shortly due to the closing of venues on such short notice) and MD had just came back from playing at Ultra Festival in Europe and was running underground events on a weekly basis around the Leinster area, so we were a match made in heaven when it came to the potential of what we could do with Reboot once we started to gain a name for ourselves in the events industry in Ireland.
Some major advice that we would give to anyone starting out as a collective is to build a team and be as honest as you can with each other; It’s essential and will help your team all grow. Another thing is to make sure to listen to everyone’s ideas, and if there’s something you don’t like, then get everybody’s opinion and work together as a team and things will work out well for you!
What are all the extensions of your brand and what do they mean?
At the moment, we have our Selecta Series, a mix series which has up until now featured just under 40 hugely talented Irish DJs & producers and out of all mixes featured, there isn’t one bad one outta the lot! (Huge shout out to everyone who’s been featured up until this point!) The most recent one we dropped is an amazing jersey club mix from Dublin based sohotsospicy. Our Selecta series is also complemented by our International Selecta Series, which so far has featured some amazing influential artists such as DJ Slugo, Paul Johnson, DJ XNX and more.
Then we have our Reboot Records Ire label, which since launching has released two huge V/A albums with the first being our “Reboot Emerald Selections” (Featuring 20+ amazing Irish artists) and our second being our “Reboot Global Connection”, which featured 20+ artists from around the globe who all came together for an amazing V/A.
Both done amazing and our latest release is our “Enter The Dragon” EP as a massive 10-track solo EP from a huge up and coming Irish artist named BLK, and also features some serious heavy hitters on the remix such as Mark Blair, DJ XNX, Neagles and Kapri Sun.
We recently launched our Reboot Record Vault which kicked off about 2 months ago and is really just a place for us to share some nice tracks that we are feeling, as the team regularly share new/old music to the group and may give inspiration to other people to find new artists etc. We also have some big plans for this project so watch out for that.
Our Reboot Spotify Takeover is where artists take over our Spotify account to create an exclusive playlist of tracks that they are feeling that week to share with our listeners, with our most recent being the hugely talented Cork-based Yasmin Gardezi.
We also have our Reboot Apparel Store which features a whole range of apparel from T-shirts, hoodie, bucket hats, tote bags and even personalised Reboot PPE gear. We are currently working on a new range of exclusive products that we hope to drop this summer, so again watch our socials…
Lastly, we have our Reboot TV, our YouTube channel where we feature all our live streams, track premieres after movies and so on.
What was your last event before Covid-19 and how have you adapted accordingly?
Our last event (pre-Covid) was the crazy Yurt City Launch party alongside the Bedlam family which was a great. It was actually the week before lock down restrictions had started which we had no idea were going to last for so long! We were so looking forward to the taking part in the actual festival, but we hope to return next year with some appearances at many others around the country!
We also ran a series of socially distanced mini festivals titled “Positive Mental Energy” (P M E) when it was deemed safe to have outdoor events up to 150 people in Ireland during the summer after Lockdown Numero Uno. It was here where we brought our unique Reboot party concept to anyone who was lucky enough to attend got to experience, as we operated this at 50 – 100 capacity (well within government guidelines) on a site that could host a couple of thousand people in normal circumstances.
This was all a trial to see how these types of events could operate safely and in line with guidelines; Temperature testing was carried out upon entry, face masks were provided, hand sanitizing stations on site and 6-people viewing booths too, so everyone had their own area to sit and dance within their social bubbles. These were also private invite-only events to allow for contact tracing and safety. These were a great success with a zero-transmission rate. However, we only ran a couple as the cases were increasing nationally plus restrictions were being increased and we would never operate outside of government guidelines and for the wellbeing of all in attendance. We have decided to wait until 2022 when we plan to bring the amazing PME concept to the next level.
Looking back, what are some of the best memories you have from running your events?
For us it brings huge joy to see the looks on our friends’ faces when we do an event for all of our crews (who come from all over Ireland), and it’s great to see everyone partying and enjoying themselves together as one big family. We pride ourselves in hospitality with that being a huge trait for Reboot that everyone is involved! I couldn’t pinpoint one particular moment that stands out the most, as we enjoyed every single one… And the ones I could mention probably can’t be shared in the public domain, but there has been plenty over the last few years and we look forward to plenty more!
Who have been some of your favourite DJs to have on board and venues?
Regarding local talent, we’ve had a broad influx of DJs & producers play for us from all around Ireland. We try our best to change the line-ups for every event to give everyone a chance and they have all been pretty amazing, so with that being said we couldn’t name any locals as we wouldn’t like to single anyone out… But when it comes to international artists, our top 5 would have to be FJAAK, MellaDee, Ejeca, Mauro Picotto and Elliot Adamson.
What future does the brand have - Anything you currently have planned?
Currently we are working harder than ever as we are planning a huge return when it is safe to do so, which may not come as a surprise to some as many of our friends and family know how much time and hard work is put into Reboot on a daily basis. We promise it will be all worth it once events can make a return.
Only recently we’ve teamed up with the infamous Research crew on our new project “The Social Service” (a sub collective on both sides), which will see some of the craziest parties Ireland has ever seen with some huge, huge plans already in the works! We may have some major announcements to come soon and the recent events in Liverpool have been giving us such high hopes that the end is near!
To find out more and keep up to date with Reboot Events, be sure to follow their links: