Poltergeist: Occult, Cathartic Festival at Le Mondo
This weekend has been one big blur and I’m still cheesing.
If you don’t already know this by now, I’m an event, rentals, and gallery manager.
I’m used to helping organizers from a venue perspective, but until Poltergeist & Séance, I haven’t had experience in organizing and promoting a music show of my own; I’m used to coordinating art exhibitions.
This summer, Avery from Anxiety Monster reached out to me asking if I’d be interested in helping him facilitate two festivals that involved live music, workshops, vendors, art installations, and a rage room, while raising money for charity (Keys Empowers and Rise with a Purpose). I told him I’d love to learn and help, so he looped in Alana McCarthy-Light, a seasoned event organizer and journalist.
For the past few months, we’ve been securing venues (Le Mondo, my home base, and 2640 Space), talent (jazz rock band, Spark Isle, R&B artist, Kiing, experimental folk artist, and the night’s visual artist, Adele Marie, bilingual post-hardcore band, FANTAZMA, post-punk band, RenRiot, sludge band, Worm Wagon, goth grudge amalgamation band, Anxiety Monster, alternative artist, Gelisasangels, and conscious rapper, Wizzle), vendors (the macabre themed Beane Beane, functional collagist, Dusk’s Doorstep, occult, spiritual, and sci-fi vendor, Alchemical Technology & Books, woodcutter and painter, Cait Phebus, and vintage clothing vendor, The Filthy Shop), workshop hosts (Makayla Joy Castillo, who focused on self-portraiture, Mother Bishop, who offered tarot readings, and Alchemical Technology & Books, who shared a healing orgonite pyramid), and volunteers, planning logistics, executing contracts, and marketing our shows.
On the day of the show, we set up the venue, loaded our artists in, and were ready to go – people were checking in exactly when doors opened. Leading up to the show, I had been nervous about the attendance, but that fear was obliterated as I saw the audience accumulate.
The show unfolded seamlessly. Alana and I could kick it like aunties in the office until Anxiety Monster’s set. We made our way to the dance floor and ran in a circle so fast that I thought if someone got in our way, the force of our bodies would kill them.
We were happy to see that our guests were engaged with our show. Even we, as organizers, got to enjoy our event.
The music was cohesive, although each act was sonically unique from the last. The rage room was an art installation in itself.
As someone who works in events, I am religious about Murphy’s Law; I didn’t have to be at Poltergeist. The whole team was coordinated.
I was so happy that I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t care, which would probably perturb anybody who knew that I was about to help finish installing and manage the opening reception for Valerie Aleta Smith’s first ever solo exhibition, Utopian Dreamer, at MAXgallery, that following Sunday.
This upcoming Saturday, November 8, 2025, we’re hosting another multidisciplinary festival at 2640 Space. Doors open at 5:30 pm, and the house closes at 11 pm; expect to hear electronic punk from Dogs, dream pop from Strawbalien, alternative rock from Quiet Room, psychedelic rock from Nova Koloso, goth grunge from Anxiety Monster, rap metal from Throwdown Syndicate, and emo music from Gramma.
Play DIY card & dice games with Grady Williams (who made the flyer!), collaborate on a drawing with Demarr Mcilwain, get a tarot reading from Mother Bishop, make a keychain with ArtNite, and create a Xerox collage with Alana McCarthy-Light.
Presale tickets are $15, and tickets are $20 at the door. A portion of proceeds will be donated towards Rise with a Purpose.
Invite a friend; come alone. However you want to enjoy Séance, just know you will.
