As hard as it is in the music business for musicians to make an impact, it’s even harder for the promoters who put on the shows they play. Not only can they be up against indifferent audiences, but they have to navigate venue requirements, arrange travel for out-of-town performers and coordinate at least a dozen musicians per show. There are quite a few established promoters in the San Diego area, from the legendary, such as Tim Mays, to the up and coming such as Gale Hopping. Newest on the scene is Vania Zamora, who among other venues, books shows at two of Ocean Beach’s top nightspots, Mother’s Saloon and Winstons. Upcoming events include The Etc., The Hellflowers and Comfort in Chaos on Sept. 24 at Mother’s Saloon and Law, No Kings, Nate Hancock and Chad Martin at Winston’s on Oct. 20. While Zamora is a San Diegan, uniquely, she works with an out-of-town promotion group, the Orange County Music League (OCML). “Above all, I’m a fan of music,” Zamora explained of the choice to work with out-of-towners. “Everybody in San Diego seemed to be grouped in certain circles and I wanted to work with a wide range of genres. As I go to shows from reggae to Americana, I wanted a team that covered everything.” She found OCML on Facebook and discovered likeminded souls just up the coast. Notably one key point is being against pay-to-play situations, where bands either don’t get paid for their travel or work, or in worst-case scenario, actually have to give money to the venue to perform. “OCML have the exact same vision as me, which is to help local musicians, provide them with a stage to play on and have the artists paid for their performances,” she noted. “So I try to find venues that pay a guarantee as opposed to a percentage of the door. To me everyone involved is putting in the same effort, so they should pay equally.” Zamora has been involved in music since 2009, working at everything from online radio to band management, but appears to have found her niche in concert promotion. While San Diego is a major concert market, she notes things could always be better. “The city’s music scene is solid in certain areas, but needs help growing in others,” she said good naturedly. “There are a lot of excellent musicians that are being overlooked. Those are the ones that I try to get under my wing and try to push them out and give them more exposure.”
One area where Zamora hopes to turn things around is having audiences stay for an entire show, something that is actually quite rare in 2016. “I want to get the scene back to what it was in high school when I was growing up, when I was first got into music back in the ’90s. People used to love to go to shows and stayed from beginning to end. Now what I’ve experienced is most people just come and see the one band on a show, out of a three- to five-band line up, that they know, and then leave. I want to encourage people to stay for the whole thing, with strong bills.” To this end she asks all the bands playing an event to also stay for the whole show and support each other. “This also has the possible effect of having their audiences stay and catch the sets from other bands as well, so they can discover music they might not have otherwise. Everybody wins,” she remarked.
With numerous successful events behind her, Zamora is happy with her efforts so far and hopes to continue indefinitely. “My favorite thing is the music,” she said. “I was already involved as a fan, but I love helping bands and watching them grow. I like being beneficial to them in some way.”