Episode 21: Michael Julian (SEERS)

Mastering Events: An Audience Republic Podcast

Michael Julian is the Founder of SEERS, a multifaceted company dedicated to driving innovation and fostering cultural transformation in the world of dance music, live events and festivals.

Michael, or MJ as he’s commonly known, was born in Minsk in Belarus before moving to Brooklyn with his family in the early ’90s. In the last year of high school his life changed when he attended Tunnel nightclub in New York, and it was there that he truly experienced the thrill of electronic music. It wasn’t long before he began working within that community, first as a sub promoter running guest lists in New York.

By the 2000s MJ had begun building a team around him to promote a weekly club night called Imagine Fridays, before expanding to events in other parts of the US. He was later approached to market a new festival called Electric Zoo, which went on to become one of the world’s biggest electronic music festivals.

We talk a lot about his work with Electric Zoo in this interview, from the festival’s incredible early growth to the issues and cancellations that damaged the brand in 2013 and 2014, and how MJ and his team set about repairing that damage and rebuilding Electric Zoo.

We also talk about his work with elrow as well as founding Gray Area, an event series, content creation and event discovery platform that brings together artists and fans from different parts of the global electronic music ecosystem, while also helping launch artists' careers.