Over a year ago, now, some young promoters from Sheffield got in touch with us at Wire with a view to do a night. It was the Pretty Pretty Good crew, led by Dan Sumner. Unknowingly, they became the pioneers of second-city promotional activity. Since then, we have welcomed nights from Manchester Middlesborough, London and more who have made Leeds and Wire their second home. But the lovely lads from the Steel City were the first to dip their toe the Leodis scene – and they have consistently brought with them incredible line-ups.
Although their official birthday takes place in Sheffield in a few weeks, we will be celebrating their three years of amazing parties this Friday with Anthony Parasole and Mor Elain.
We asked the lads to have a little reminisce on what has been, to adapt a famous line from Gladys Knight, “a better than pretty pretty good time”.
What was your wildest party?
“Wow – we’ve just taken a pretty wild trip down memory lane. Taking a moment to stop and think about all the highlights is actually incredibly motivational and isn’t something that we do naturally very often, so thank you for that. The first time that we had Objekt play for us in Hope Works’ 100 capacity ‘Mesters’ space was absolute madness! The energy in the room was absolutely mind-blowing all night and he played on an extra hour until 8am without anyone going home. I don’t think I’ve been at a party in the UK where things have been quite that energetic for multiple hours. There were 100 aching bodies in Sheffield the next day, that’s for sure!
“Our party with Paranoid London (Live), Pangaea, Jane Fitz, Lurka & Laksa last year was also a really wild one but on a much bigger scale. Some friends of ours made a video of that one:
Who has been your most loveable guest?
“That’s a very very tricky one to answer! I think we’d have to say Objekt to be honest haha! We really do love TJ. Tama Sumo is also an absolute babe – just so lovely to be around. In very recent times I think I’d have to say Gerd Janson – SUCH a nice and interesting guy. Palmsy T has a special place in our hearts, as does Pangaea. Roman Flügel was super humble and very enjoyable to have dinner with. Byron The Aquarius is a total G. Resom we see as a friend. Mor Elian makes us smile whenever we see her. O’Flynn is great to have a beer with. Octave One and their tour manager Ziggy were all proper dudes too. Ah we could go on forever to be honest… We’re actually at the stage now where we’ve been doing it for long enough that we only really want to book DJs who are really nice people, and we’ve been incredibly lucky so far. It’s a really nice industry to be involved with in that respect.
“Objekt Instagram post taken inside Samir’s PhD lab where we went to print the ticket list before the first Hope Works show in Sheffield:
Running nights isn’t always a breeze. What has been the worst moment in your PPG careers?
“Losing thousands of pounds on a lineup that we were incredibly proud of and which we believed was world class was extremely challenging. We made the very difficult decision to go ahead with it and take the full loss as it was, rather than trying to change the event at all to save money. No regrets. In the end we made the main room smaller in quite a clever way using drapes and the party was every bit as special as we’d hoped, but it cost us a lot of money for our tickets and wiped out a solid chunk of what we’d built up from previous events! We learnt a lot from the experience though and it was worth it just for the poster…”
On the flip side, what has been your proudest moment?
“There have been countless ‘proudest moments’ but we’d have to say that the ones that really hit home are the ones where individual people have been affected in some positive by what we do and have then told us about it. Giving a platform to our residents and to other local DJs who might not have had the chance otherwise also always feels super special too. The community that’s formed around us is what motivates us to keep on going so big shouts to the PPG Posse!”
If you had to pick one track to sum up PPG, what would it be?
What is next for PPG?
“More parties in Leeds, Sheffield, London and Bristol. The launch of the label later on in the year. A snazzy website to host a new blog and everything else that we do. We might even do some t-shirts. We’ve also got a load of really good gig bookings coming up in a few different cities as well as Dimensions Festival and Soundwave Festival, so the Summer is looking like it’s going to be a lot of fun!”
