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Meet Carlos Aguilar and Adonis Rose of Funky Town Music and Film Festival

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Carlos Aguilar and Adonis Rose.

Carlos and Adonis, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I’ve been a musician since I was about 12 years old and always aspired to be a filmmaker (stop motion cinema and live action. All throughout high school I played the electric guitar (rock and blues) but when I graduated from high school, I found myself immersed in jazz and composition. When I was in middle school I played the trombone and had always loved brass instruments and found myself back in a world of colorful tones when I began exploring the world of jazz. My father was a professor of art at the Tarrant County College district for 38 years so my life has always been filled with a complete appreciation for the visual and performing arts so when I decided to put together a festival in Fort Worth that focused on the visual and performing arts along with my love of motion pictures, with an educational component to give back to our emerging creative community, my father was very proud.

I spent a number of years performing with a number of bands and other local musicians when I graduated high school and quickly found myself putting together a number of small businesses to help pay the bills that included designing and building pro audio for bands and clubs, while running sound for the front of house at various venues around the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I finally decided around 2000 to make a career change and focus on a career to help stabilize my finances and also develop my love for sales and construction. In my adolescent years, I spent most of my summers making extra money doing odd jobs in construction workers as a helper. My grandfather who was both an architect and a musician, came from a family of performers and scholars and before I was 12 years old, my grandfather had taught me the basics of architecture so by the time I was 14 I could draw a simple 3 bedroom home to scale and a good knowledge of 3 dimensional architecture and design. In late 2000, I took a sales position at the request of a friend whose family owned a commercial building materials supply company in Irving TX. It didn’t take very long before I found a new appreciation for fast pace sales and a new passion for the construction industry. In two years, I was hired by one of my clients to sell for their drywall service company in Dallas TX. And within two years a friend of mine who had recently sold a business and was looking to get into something new. In a few short years our drywall service company had exploded into one of the top drywall service companies in Dallas.

Unfortunately, as things go in our economy, things took a downward turn and in 2008 and gave me an opportunity to evaluate where I was and what I wanted to do moving forward in my career. I had a friend come to me whom I had the opportunity to work with in the late 90’s in music and video and asked me to start a kind of trade group for independent filmmakers in our area. It didn’t take long and I founded and formed the non-profit organization the ‘Endeavor Cinema Group’ in the fall of 2009 in my home town of Fort Worth, TX. We’ve had the pleasure of screening numerous indie films over the years, develop workshops, hold industry panels and seminars. About two years ago my business partner and co-founder, Adonis Rose met through a friend who told me that Adonis was working on getting a music festival off the ground in Fort Worth. I had always wanted to start a music and film festival in Fort Worth and believed by offering a platform for our rising creatives in our area would help develop the entertainment industry in Fort Worth but also strengthen our growing economy from the influx of creative coming into the north Texas area. Our festival also has a strong component for the visual arts and was something I wanted to celebrate and help build because of my father’s dedications and tireless work as a professor of art at the Tarrant County College district for 38 years. And because of service as an educator in the arts, the Funky Town Festivals main objective is to help provide funding for the arts in our schools and scholarships for lesser privileged kids. The Endeavor Cinema group has just expanded its mission and now supports not only filmmakers but visual artist, musicians, performance arts, designers and architecture. And the new Funky Town Festival Foundation was recently formed to provide the necessary funding for our educational component for the festival. As we move forward to build a festival for our city and for a wide range of art, music and motion picture enthusiast we plan to incorporate many more components to help develop our emerging industries in the creative arts, entrepreneur’s and even the tech sector. We believe that all of these industries are closely related and help feed one another for a stronger more vibrant economy.

Has it been a smooth road?
Things have not been easy for us to get this festival off of the ground. Adonis and I both tried to get a festival off of the ground before we had ever met. This is both our second time to try and start something like this. Which is the reason we named our festival mascot ‘Deuce’ A cool longhorn that sports a beard, mirrored sunglasses and headphones. We’ve had an incredible outpour of interest from the City of Fort Worth, including Mayor Price, the CVB of Fort Worth, Tarrant County college, the Trinity River Vision Authority and a lot of media and corporate sponsor thanks to our incredible marketing and PR team from Wheelhouse Marketing and PR, There have been some challenges we’ve met along our journey concerning possible partners that had to step away due to personal reasons of conflict. But we’re having a lot of movement in our fundraising efforts currently and looking to secure final funds for a private offering we have been soliciting to accredited investors.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Funky Town Music and Film Festival – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
The Funky Twin Music and Film Festival will be an annual festival but so much more than just an annual event. Funky Town Festival will be a diversified festival, celebrating all genres of music (Rock, alternative, EDM, Country etc) film and the visual arts with a solid foundation for creative arts education with an industry conference include film, art and music industry professionals, We have already begun hosting monthly festival events year round at our new facility called the Funky Town Creative Arts lounge. The Creative Arts Lounge doubles basically as a new space to house our main offices for the festival and also functions as an community arts space to exhibit and host local artist visual works, hold community film screenings, film industry panels and workshops and host live musical performances. We like to refer to these events as ‘Funky Town all year round’ a way for us to celebrate our community of creatives throughout the year. Funky Town Festival specializes in celebrating Fort Worth and the surrounding community of creatives like no other organization or festival does in our area. Then we give back to our community by helping to provide educational and scholarships funds through the new Funky Town Festival Foundation. We truly believe that our core mission to create a truly diversified festival with a strong focus on giving back to community and our creative arts education sets us miles apart from any other festival in our area. Lastly, we are most proud of our creative team we assembled with like-minded ambitions to bring a festival like no other to North Texas.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
What I love most about Fort Worth is that we still operate like a small town with everyone working hard to help you succeed. Our love for the arts is second to none and our love for music and film are flourishing in our city today with more Grammy award winners and award winning filmmakers popping up with high profile Hollywood productions and sitcoms coming to Fort Worth every day. We may move a little slower than our cities near us but we make the kind of progressive moves that strengthen our economy, while providing a safe and healthy lifestyle for people who have always lived here and are moving to our city by the numbers. We may not be able to call our city a town much longer but we can certainly act one like one no matter our size.

Pricing:

  • General pricing for admission will be around $135 but there will be lower tickets for individual shows which will be held at partner venues through out the city.
  • VIP pricing will be around $500 dollars but will get you a lot for your money and will certainly have its advantages.

Contact Info:

Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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