Going Big and Going Broke: Promoter Robbie Kowal on 15 Years of Putting on Concerts in S.F.

What's the most you've ever lost on a show?
Double six-figures. Over $200,000. That wasn't a show in S.F. It was another -- Aretha Franklin in Washington, D.C. We got murdered. We got our butts kicked. That said, we paid all our bills, and we lived to fight another day.

How and why did you get into this insane business, and why was your first show a Mardi Gras night?
I had lived in New Orleans for five years, and [co-founder] John [Miles] had been a [production assistant] on New Orleans Jazz Fest. So we were both brass band junkies. Most people grew up, they were into hip-hop or whatever. I was completely owned by Rebirth Brass Band. We got into funk from the brass band scene, because in New Orleans, the brass band nights were the only places where all the races could get together in a really egalitarian happy medium. There was a lot of segregation, racism, in New Orleans, but it does not translate to the dancefloor. John I think was the same way. Both of us were just New Orleans music junkies. We founded the company to bring New Orleans bands out here, and we're still bringing Rebirth out.

You're from Boston originally and you've lived in New Orleans. Why start your company in San Francisco?
What makes S.F. so special is what really glares at me when I go back to Boston: the fact that everybody gets along here in general. You just don't see people get in fights, or act like idiots. In Boston, you go out at night, you see people get drunk and get in fights -- that's just what they do. Here we go out and we get into each other. We meet people, we connect with people, we dance with each other, we talk to each other. This is really a city of very interesting people who seem really interested in getting to know each other. A really open city. I think the Burning Man experience has a really good effect in that regard, but it also goes all the way back to this ethos of what S.F. means to people, the myth of S.F.

How has the city's scene changed since you started Sunset in 1996?
People that were here in the '90s will tell you that it was a better time, because the underground was incredibly powerful then. People were breaking into warehouses and throwing parties, and that was a very beautiful and innocent time. That's not really possible anymore, because there's no space anymore, and because of all the crackdowns on that sort of thing. On the other hand, there are so many great clubs, so many great facilities. Why do you need to break into a warehouse when you could just go do a show at Mezzanine or Public Works or Mighty?

What's the hardest part about this business?
The hardest thing is putting it aside when you lose badly. If [a show is] a failure, if nobody comes, we've let the artist down, we've let the community down, and we've also lost money. So it's like a triple nut-punch. And then there's that morning after. It used to be, when John and I lived together out in the Sunset, we had a big apartment out there ... We'd always have that inevitable Sunday afternoon where we'd order in Chinese food and just hide from the world because we were so miserable.

Do you have a mantra when it comes to doing shows?
The thing I've learned from doing this so long, it's always going to be a gamble. So you have to ensure two things. One, you don't want to lose on something you don't care about. We never book a show that we don't really believe in. The second thing is you have to be able to walk away from that event knowing that you did an excellent job for the artist and for the attendees. So if you lose money, at least you're proud of the work you did.

*Correction: This post originally stated that tonight's Mardi Gras Ball is at Mighty. It is actually at Mezzanine. We regret the error.

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