Kobi Wu-Pasmore: Teaching Live Music Event Curation

With record sales in seemingly never-ending freefall and artist tours and music festivals breaking records, you can’t afford to sleep on the live event industry.

Kobi Wu-Pasmore, the former director of special events at Cornerstone Promotions (where she played a big role in developing the stellar Pharrell-Santigold-Julian Casablancas Converse campaign) and the former manager for artists like Sy Smith, Macy Gray and Sunshine Anderson, joins us this Fall to teach a brand new course called “Curating Live Music Events.”

Kobi (pictured in the middle, flanked on the left side of your screen by Artistic Director Jason King and on the right side by student Jared Feldman) will be teaching students about what it means to be a successful “music curator.” Different per se from producing events, curating focuses on the marketing and promotion of events, including working with brands and third-party sponsors.

We asked Kobi to name her favorite event that she’s curated. Hard choice, she confessed – but she settled on Polaroid Presents…The Outkast Grammy After Party on February 8 2004. The lavish affair, held at a private mansion in the Hollywood Hills, was sponsored by Polaroid, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and XBox. The red carpet rolled out for guests like The Black Eyed Peas, Kelly Osbourne, and Lindsay Lohan.

Hear more about what Kobi had to say about curating this event:

“The event was a full scale production – me and my small team (of 3) handled everything- from selecting the mansion in Hollywood Hills; organizing the talent- the 3 super star DJs – Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson, Mark Ronson, and Goldfinger; handling sponsorships; organizing the guest list; organizing the shuttle to carry people to the mansion; even the toilet paper for the executive style port-a-potties. It was a lot to handle for 2000 + guests, celebrities and executives.”

Kobi continues: “With Outkast, that Grammy event meant everything to them as they were finally realizing their superstar status. For me, it helped “put me on the map” of major players in the world of events.”

Welcome Kobi!