Q & A with Alvaro Prol

?Over 15 years, you’ve brought some of the biggest DJs to town. How did you start?I’ve been a fan of dance music since I was 15 years old—by the time I was 19, I was going out five nights a week. A promoter at the time thought I knew a lot of people and asked me to do an event with him at a club. That was the last time I worked for someone else.

What’s your biggest show so far? David Guetta and Avicii last year had around 6,500 attendees, and another show with Avicii in December did 6,500 people as well. We did two nights with Skrillex in October that had over 8,000.

This is dance music, stadium size. Maybe not in Vancouver, but electronic dance music events this scale and larger have been happening around the world for quite awhile now. DJs have massive cult followings and tour schedules that rival, if not top, the biggest of touring musicians.

Yet many arena acts like Daft Punk and the Chemical Brothers have never been to Vancouver. Are we still immature when it comes to the dance scene? Daft Punk and the Chemical Brothers are definitely pioneers, but acts like Deadmau5 and Skrillex are Grammy-nominated gold- and platinum-selling artists that have broken into mainstream music in ways those acts never did. As for Vancouver, this city has been an amazing and receptive market. Since the Olympics, big venues like the convention centre have opened up and are allowing larger events to occur.

Your company, Blueprint Events, works with a larger group that owns liquor stores and nightclubs. How do your enterprises fit together? Blueprint began pretty humbly in the club and underground warehouse scene, but we’ve grown into a structured company with a staff of eight. In our strategic partnership with the Adelphia Group we book most of our shows at their venues, like Venue, Celebrities, and Caprice. We oversee the marketing and promotion of their properties. And in January, we became part owners of Celebrities.

Blueprint has expanded in recent years: Victoria, Whistler, Edmonton. Will you outgrow Vancouver? Never. I moved here in 1990—I was born in Buenos Aires—and I love it. We have it very good in Vancouver. Plus, my wife and I have a son now; this is his home. Blueprint is focused on making Vancouver a true West Coast entertainment powerhouse. This is a world-class city with a strong electronic music scene. And it’s only going to get better.