Today we’d like to introduce you to Juan Cabrera.
Hi Juan, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’m originally from the Dominican Republic and was an MLB pitching prospect (one of 30 chosen) to participate in an exclusive, invitation-only development camp. I ended up suffering a shoulder injury that ended my MLB dreams during that camp and wasn’t sure what was next for me. I ended up moving to New York in May 2004 and decided to follow my older brother’s path of learning English and earning my college degree from Lehman College in the Bronx. While my shoulder was ruined for pitching, at 6’6″ I was still able to play basketball and ended up playing while I earned my BBA in Business with a concentration in Marketing. I would end up meeting my future wife at a New Year’s Eve Singles Party in Manhattan (she was the organizer of the event) and in 2012 took the leap and moved with her to Texas. Being in the event space she introduced me to Will Petz, the founder of Silent Disco Company, Quiet Events who was running events in the New York Tri-state area, but was interested in getting them started in Texas. He came down and trained me on how to run the events and manage all of the equipment and shipments for rentals. It was a great fit for me as I’m very organized, love meeting new people and getting to travel. Very quickly we became the top silent disco company in Austin Texas producing 3-4 events a month and also received the honor of getting to produce the silent disco at Austin City Limits each year. We were starting to build a presence in Dallas and Houston, but when COVID hit everything came to a halt. During that time period, my wife and I who both work in the event space had to quickly figure out other ways to earn a living. Thankfully events are back now, bigger than ever and we also have other businesses to fall back on. My family and I spend our time between Austin, Houston and New Orleans. In the little free time, I have when I’m not producing silent disco events I love biking in the Greater Heights area, swimming and spending time with our 4-year-old daughter Nola and 3 rescue cats (Miu Miu, Zoe & Ringo). We also enjoy weekend brunch. Our go-to Sunday brunch spot is Empire Cafe.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Establishing brand awareness and building a following when starting in a new market is no easy feat, through really hitting the pavement and doing community outreach whenever possible and great word-of-mouth from return customers telling their friends, and great organic press coverage, we were able to do it in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and now Houston. When we first started doing our events in Austin, we noticed we had a lot of attendees that had driven from Houston to attend. We also had a ton of Houston peep attending the silent discos we produced every year at Austin City Limits. They kept asking us to bring silent disco to Houston and last September, we finally did a launch party at The Brass Tap Midtown. Not having a Houston mailing list yet, we were nervous as to what kind of turnout to expect, but had over 200 people sign up for our first event! People loved the event and asked when the next one was going to be. We’re working with the team at Brass Tap to produce quarterly events in Houston and are also looking for other venues to partner with in other areas of the city.
COVID was another huge obstacle. My wife and I both work in the event space and pretty much overnight, we lost both of our incomes as events were pretty much over indefinitely. That was a rough year and a half, almost two years, but I’m happy to say fast-forward to October 2022 and events are back and bigger than ever.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Quiet Events was Founded in August 2012, Quiet Events® offers city-dwellers and tourists of all ages and orientations an innovative club and party experience like none other. The company has over 20,000 headsets and offers headphone rentals across the US and produces Quiet Clubbing Parties, Tours and Events in the Tri-state (NY, NJ, CT), Austin, Houston, Dallas & San Antonio TX, San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA and Ottawa, CAN. Great for any occasion, (partying solo, with friends, birthday celebrations, a girl’s night out) Quiet Events are hosted at clubs, lounges, outdoor venues and even on subways. For more information, visit QuietEvents.com.
Silent discos are great b/c people can literally dance to their own beat and can sing out loud without any inhibitions like when they are in the shower. There are 3-live DJs spinning 3-different genres of music at the same time. We usually have “EDM / Top 40,” “80s, 90s, 2K” and “Hip Hop/R&B” as our three stations. Everyone receives a pair of wireless LED colored headphones and can switch channels as they please. There is a lot of FOMO (Fear of missing out) going on as people will see the color of their friend’s headphones and be like, they look like they’re listening to something really good, let me switch channels. The DJs can see on the dance floor how many people are listening to their station based on the color of the people’s headphones. If no one is listening, they have to up their game and change it up to try to win people back to their channel. It’s also super social b/c there is no blaring club music. If you want to talk to someone or order a drink you simply take the headsets off and can talk in a regular voice without competing with blaring music. Our events typically take place on a Friday or Saturday evening from 10pm to 2am. We can do them at clubs, outdoors, we can even do mobile parties where we go to different locations like a bar crawl. In addition to using the headphones for silent discos, they can be used for karaoke, movies, conferences, and everything in between.
What would you say has been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
That everything has a way of working out. Event production can be very stressful. Think I read somewhere that it’s considered one of the top 10 stressful professions right up there with being an EMS, firefighter or surgeon! I’ve had situations where a venue an hour before an event realized they double booked us and another event and I had to scramble to find a venue to move to and notify all attendees of the change within 60 minutes of our event starting. I once had a DJ that was booked during the event have to stop in the middle of the event due to medical issues. Down a DJ wasn’t sure what to do, but turned out we had a very well-known DJ in the audience that night who ended up filling in and we didn’t miss a beat! I’ve pretty much seen and done it all and now know not to stress, it always works out one way or another.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.QuietEvents.com
- Instagram: @QuietEvents
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuietEvents
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/QuietEvents
Image Credits
Photo of Juan holding glowsticks credit: Sai Karri
#2 & 3 & 10 can be credited to Quiet Events
The rest can be credited to Shanaz Maharaj (@photosnipa).
