Wax Palace
Harry Markes
Harry was awarded a prestigious Spark Enterprise Scholarship in 2019/20 and was therefore offered a place at the enterprise boot camp. He credits this experience and the continued support of SPARK as fundamental in the development of his successful events business, Wax Palace.
The bootcamp taught Harry the value of investing in training and he has recently enrolled his event managers on a course with Good Night Out, an organisation who provide safety accreditation within the events industry.
“In 2019 Wax Palace was a small music festival with a strong elevator pitch: ‘we build a 9000 sq. ft. maze, fill it with hidden dance floors and art, and curate a lineup of the UK’s best underground electronic music’. The brand started well, and it was soon after our first event that we were introduced to SPARK. But within a year of trading, the country was in lockdown and the climate of the events industry turned on us; we were forced to cancel the 2020 festival and Wax Palace seemed to face an uncertain future.”
Harry Markes
Wax Palace
“In all honesty, I doubt we would have survived the pandemic and its ongoing impact without the funding and training that SPARK provided. SPARK gave us the confidence and the support we needed to weather the storm, and we have since organised two more festivals, promoted a roster of club nights in cities around the UK, grown an equipment rental business, launched a clothing brand and taken our biggest leap as a business yet: Wax Palace worked in collaboration with Boiler Room to design an audio-visual event in Bristol, soundtracked in part by our own resident DJs. It’s hard to describe the cultural weight that Boiler Room hold within dance music, but for those unconnected to the industry the best I can do is to draw comparison to ‘Top Of The Pops’ - fans regard the platform as a signpost toward good, trendy music, and we’re proud to have been a part of that.”
The bootcamp taught Harry the value of investing in training and he has recently enrolled his event managers on a course with Good Night Out, an organisation who provide safety accreditation within the events industry.
