Interview: Surina Gangwani discusses Sofar Sounds return to Indianapolis

For more than a decade, Sofar Sounds has connected music fans with intimate, unconventional concert experiences in cities across the globe. After a hiatus, the project is returning to Indianapolis—thanks to local ambassador Surina Gangwani, who is relaunching the series with a renewed focus on community.

WFYI's Kyle Long spoke with Surina about the vision behind SoFar, and what audiences can expect as the concerts return to Indianapolis.

Kyle Long: Surina, you have some exciting news to share. You're relaunching the so far sounds music series here in Indianapolis. Thank you for taking time to be here and talk to us about it.

Surina Gangwani: Thank you for having me. Yeah, Sofar is back in Indianapolis. We are launching our first show Thursday, November 20, and it is in a secret location in Riverside. We're featuring three local artists, and we're really excited to bring back these intimate artist audience experiences to Indianapolis.

Long: For those in our audience who are not familiar with Sofar Sounds, can you bring us up to date? I know this was started in 2009 in an apartment in London. It's since grown into an international movement, with ambassadors such as yourself in cities around the world organizing concerts. People like Billie Eilish and Chappell Roan have performed in the Sofar concert series. Tell us a little bit about so far sounds.

Gangwani: Yeah, absolutely, and thank you for doing your research. It sounds like you could do the whole spiel for me. Sofar Sounds was created in 2009 and really came out of a vision from our founder, Rafe Offer, who went to a concert and saw that there just wasn't the connection that you get with an artist at an intimate venue. It was like people were on their phones and talking to each other and grabbing drinks.

All those things we absolutely love and still exist in the Sofar format. But what makes it magical is that ability to get that face to face with the artist, with the audience, and really feel like you're in this magical liminal space with a community of folks and really supporting art in its purest form. While also spotlighting local businesses and cool, intimate spaces in Indianapolis that maybe you're not frequenting. You touched on this, but we're in 400 cities around the world, and folks like Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, these folks were Sofar artists before they were household names, which I think is extremely cool.

Long: There's a lot of trust from the audience who attends these concerts, right? When they sign up to attend a Sofar event, they may not know the artist lineup. Sometimes the location is kept secret for a period of time. Tell me a little bit about that aspect of Sofar.

Gangwani: There's so much fun in the mystery of it all, and I think that that adds to the magic of the event. So touching on it perfectly, we typically will give you the neighborhood. You'll buy your ticket in a neighborhood, and then we'll release the address and the lineup 36 hours before the event. Sometimes we get a little excited, and we'll give you a little teaser here or there, but for the most part, we like the mystery to be a part of the fun of the night out. So that's one of our favorite parts about it as well.

Long: What's the best way for our listeners to connect with Sofar Indianapolis to get registered or signed up to attend an event?

Gangwani: Yeah absolutely, there are so many different ways. I would say number one, follow us on Instagram at @sofarsoundsindy and then I would also say, definitely take a look at our website, you will see all of our upcoming events there. I would love, love, love to see new faces there and to bring this unique experience to you.

Long: Surina, I appreciate you taking time to be here to share a little bit about your history with Sofat and the future of the series. I wish you great success with this project.

Gangwani: Thank you. I really appreciate it.