Elevada Promotions want you to elevate!
By admin on May 10, 2008 in Events
Elevada is portugese for ‘Elevate’, a word which best describes the ethos behind this London promotion. Elevating the crowd by playing the finest dirty, electro & uplifting house music, combined with a pinch of glamour and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a banging party and that’s what Elevada is all about!
We interview Paul Barnard, the man behind Elevada promotions to find out how Elevada was conceived, what it’s all about, how they linked up with Kinky Malinki and what Pauls thoughts are on the future of promotion in London.
The following is a transcript of selected questions within the interview. To hear the full interview, please download the audio file using the “Quick links” box at the top right of this page.
Paul, Elevada is a night your run. Can you tell us when you started putting on the Elevada parties?
Elevada started almost a year ago today. We started off with a boat party on the Thames with a Kinky Malinki after party at Turnmills, which was on the 17th May last year. So, we’re one year old now. We had our first birthday party in April, as that was when the idea came about, and we thought we’d do the first birthday party when the idea first happened.
What does the name Elevada mean?
Elevada mean elevate in Portuguese. I’m not Portuguese or anything like that, but I was doing a bit of translation and it just came up. I thought to myself that elevate is a word that describes every aspect of the night from the people to the music and the all around atmosphere, that’s what we try and do – to elevate the crowd and get everyone uplifted. So, when I saw it I thought Elevada sort of rolls of the tongue. So that’s it. No real deep meaning behind it, it just sounds good.
What would you say, in your time of throwing events in London, your favourite venue has been?
My favourite venue that I’ve been involved in is The Island. I think it’s a cracking little venue. It’s in Charing Cross, I think it used to be called the Sound Shaft. It’s part of Heaven but it has a separate entrance. It’s a cracking little venue, I really like it in there. The only one problem is the acoustics as it has quite big high ceilings in the main room, but it has a cracking little atmosphere for 350 people. I’m someone who prefers a smaller venue. I like to see everyone talking to each other rather than going for a 1500 capacity venue like Turnmills. Although Turnmills was cracking, don’t get me wrong, but I prefer the smaller party. Corsica Studios, where one of my friends used to do a night, is a good venue if you want a bit of a dirty underground night. I haven’t done a night there, but I’ve been to a friend’s party, and if you want something a bit rough around the edges and not so glossy that’s definitely a good venue to go to.
Running events in London is especially hard. How hard would you say it is to run a night in the capital and get a good crowd down there?
You could have the best designs, logos and slogans, but the hardest part is getting a good crowd, the core crowd, and a good atmosphere. It’s when you trying to make sure you attract the right people, things like Facebook and Don’t Stay In can really help. Some people attract a lot of friends and people, but they don’t know who they are from Adam. I think it’s important that you attract thr right people. I’d much rather do a 250 person party with people in there all having a really good time, the people all being likeminded and there for the same reason, rather than doing a 600-700 capacity venue and have 250 people there who aren’t of the same opinion, and maybe have different reasons for being there, e.g. getting out of hand or wanting to fight. That isn’t what we do it for as a whole. Getting the right crowd is the hardest thing, building it up slowly and not getting carried away is the hardest part for me.
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