Paxahau picks up pace, moves to larger office in Corktown

Paxahau is most well known for producing electronic music shows, in particular Movement Electronic Music Festival. But they put on a lot more, and the number of those shows has spiked.

Paxahau had averaged about 15 events annually until recently. But in 2014, it hit a new high with 25 events. Last year was even better with Paxahau producing 45 shows, including its signature events like Movement, the Detroit Jazz Festival, and two Detroit Restaurant Week events.

"Last year was very active," says Jason Huvaere, president of Paxahau. "We also produced our first out-of-area show."

Movement Getaway Puerto Rico was an electronic music festival held in San Juan with a local partner in mid November. It was so successful that Huvaere plans to do it again this year.

Paxahau's current workload of nearly one event per week has meant that the company needed to grow. It moved its offices to a larger location in Corktown earlier this year. About two thirds of the 12,000 square foot space is dedicated to warehousing and the rest is office space for its core team of a dozen people. Paxahau usually staffs up to a couple hundred people when its putting on its big events, such as Movement.

"It might be more than that now," Huvaere says. "With our contractors it could get up to 350 people."

Huvaere plans to keep growing Paxahau by sticking to his knitting and focusing on its core business of event production. He also is looking at expanding the Movement Getaway brand with more shows.

"We love what we do," Huvaere says. "I would say if anything we want to maintain the course we are on right now."

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