Matthew Romo: Early Career Promoter Fund
Concise Description: Launch event (club night with DJs), followed by up to 2-4 events per year
Bio: Focus Break is an events series and platform for sounds across the entire spectrum of broken beat music and adjacent styles. Centred around breaks, garage, jungle, broken beat ‘bruk’ house and soul, UK funky, breakbeat electro/techno and Afro/Latin inspired rhythms, Focus Break is designed to break down barriers, not build them. Creating an inclusive, welcoming community through shared connections and experiences, it seeks to uplift grassroots artists (primarily producers and DJs) with invisible illness, disability and neurodivergence, as well as better global majority and gender representation.
Focus Break was born when DJ and promoter Matt Romo (aka Ro-Motion) decided that turning 30 was the right moment to ignite the challenge of running events alone. After years of working with collectives and running successful events, Matt wanted to realise his vision, undiluted. With the unique perspective of being a disabled and neurodivergent person, he wanted to expand out of gatekept scenes that felt inaccessible and ‘exclusive’.
Despite knowing people across all different backgrounds and walks of life, many friends that weren’t involved in music “scenes” who appreciated the underground tracks and artists he was playing and promoting had a feeling they didn’t know the music well enough. Some didn’t feel cool enough, weren’t sure they’d feel at home in a “rave” or club, felt they lacked the energy or would be overwhelmed. Matt wanted to make this experience as accessible as possible.
Lockdown heavily interrupted the events industry – and for Matt, his health and a career across the NHS and social care plus research and charity sectors slowed down his journey in music. Through PRS, the ECPF will help make this dream possible again by covering some of the costs of launching an events series to do so sustainably, as well as professional development to scale up.
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