intent, purpose, and fun

Revel Girl has become a defining force in Southern California’s indie music scene, gaining a reputation for curating vibrant, inclusive events that prioritize friendship and self-expression. Founders Samantha Limon and Tamara Issi talk with Reckless Magazine about their roots in the Inland Empire, the challenges and triumphs of organizing events, and the number one goal of building community.

Southern California, USA

What is Revel Girl?

Revel Girl is a community-forward whimsy maxing event curation collective founded by Samantha Limon and Tamara Issi. We added Valeria Velasco as support to our team last year! We incorporate bands that we love, small businesses, and dress up themes into all our events. Revel Girl moves with intent, purpose, and fun!

What is the Revel Girl origin story?

We (Samantha and Tamara) first connected in 2020 through roller skating. We found a beautiful community of women during that time and began gathering girls at skate parks to teach them how to skate and take up space. We saw a skateboard competition with rock bands at our local park and it inspired us to host our own. Though we faced many obstacles that day, we knew this wasn’t the end for our community organizing skills.

What makes Revel Girl unique compared to other promoters and collectives?

We aren’t promoters. We view ourselves as event curators and community leaders. We put our faces on every piece of promo so the community puts a face to the name. If you come to a show and don’t know anybody, you know us. If you wanna get up in the crowd or need someone to dance with, you’ve got us. We’re different because we’re there to have fun and build community too. We never leave a revel girl show without 10 new friends.

Since Revel Girl was born in the Inland Empire of Southern California, how would you describe the music scene? What are the scene's strengths, and what do you think needs to change?

The music scene is hungry and bustling. There are so many amazing bands right now coming out of the Inland Empire. What we love about this scene is the way crowds respond to having intentional well thought out events. It makes us feel very appreciated. We are seeing this happen more and more as our generations are starting to open their own businesses and throw their own shows. People love the have access in their own cities and support. The only thing I would hope can change is people being more willing to go and experience new things even if they don’t know who the bands are or something, because you may discover something completely new or make new friends. Be intentional when you go out and try to make connections everywhere you go, even if it’s brief! Rebuilding real life connections is how we bring communities together. Say hi to strangers even if it’s awkward! We love to introduce people we know to each other because we think they would be friends!

What was your very first show like? How have you grown since then?

Our very first show was thrown with some friends in the scene who we still work with!

It was fully put together from the collaboration of our beautiful community. We had friends with bands we loved in the scene who were up to support our vision. We overspent and had no idea what we were doing but managed to make a beautiful event. Now we have a much more streamlined way of organizing and making sure we stick within our goals. The thing that hasn’t changed is the community we have built that shows up for us at each and every event.

What joys and struggles have you experienced while throwing events?

We will start with struggles; Some struggles have been learning how to balance our full time jobs while still putting 100% into every event. Another struggle has been managing the financial aspect of it all. We invest a lot into each of our events and trying to continue doing what we love while balancing responsibilities is always tough! Even through these struggles the immense joy we get from what we do makes it worth it. The joys of hearing how people had made great friends at our shows, getting people out of their comfort zones and seeing them blossom into their community on their own, seeing the bands we work with thrive and succeed. It’s truly so beautiful and we remember everyone we dance with, we love to see people on the streets who tell us they loved one of our shows, and we have made so many friends in this. It’s worth every bit of work!

What have been some memorable events you've thrown?

Our very first prom is always memorable! It was what made us realize our comparability in doing this. Another memorable one was our Renaissance Fair show, it was so beautiful seeing how many people committed to a theme and hearing how people were so happy we were bringing events like that into the IE.

It’s so funny though because each event we throw we leave saying “WOW, that has to be up there in our favorites” we just live for it!

If you could book a show at any venue with any lineup in any city, what would they be?

Oh, this is so hard! Honestly there’s not a specific one. However, a dream of ours has always been doing a road trip and booking shows with a unique lineup in each state. Essentially a Revel Girl Roadshow! It would be so fun and we love bands from so many different states so since we can’t afford to fly the out, we would love to go to them and book lineups with them there.

What does the future look like for Revel Girl? What's next?

Well, ultimately our dream goal is having a venue one day that could be a beautiful community space to create whatever dreams come into our head. But for now, we just want to continue to be smart and do whatever we can to continue building community every way we can.