Jet / Founder of Dark Force Fest and VampireFreaks
Founder of Dark Force Fest and VampireFreaks
Jet grew up in Brooklyn, found industrial and goth in the early 90s through Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, and got into promoting and throwing his own nights first in Rochester and then as Cybertron.
VampireFreaks started in 1999 that became an actual social network that grew to millions of users and became the internet's home address for a whole generation of goth kids before he retired it in 2020. These days VampireFreaks is a 15,000 square foot warehouse with a dozen-plus employees, putting out new gear every couple of days.
Jet first started Triton Festival in Brooklyn in 2010, then again in 2013. Dark Side of the Con from 2018 through 2022, which brought in the vendors, the panels, the convention energy, and the castle hotel. Dark Force Fest launched in 2023 as the version where all of it finally clicked. 2024 ran 40 bands across two stages with a hundred-plus vendors, a drag show, panels, cosplay, and a live bat exhibit. This past May brought 35 bands, Combichrist, Front Line Assembly, and London After Midnight headlining the three nights, a pre-party at QXTs in Newark, and a brand new outdoor tent with food trucks and a biergarten. It sold out in record time the year before and was already 80% gone months out. Jet still personally books every band and puts so much love into his community.
Whether you've done all three days in Parsippany, played the second stage, sold merch in the vendor hall, or you just had a VampireFreaks profile back in the day and never knew who was behind it, this is a conversation with someone who has spent twenty-five years building a very special community.
What they get into
- Getting into promoting because nobody would book you to DJ, and what ten people at your first show teaches you
- Building VampireFreaks from a hobby site into a social network with millions of users
- What actually goes into booking 35 to 40 bands yourself every year
- Taking the lessons from Triton and Dark Side of the Con and building Dark Force Fest out of the parts that worked
- Running a festival inside a hotel, and what that does for the crowd that a normal venue can't
- Selling out in record time and the very real question of outgrowing the castle
- Where the goth and industrial scene sits in 2026, and what he's building toward for 2027