Lila: Can you share the role of social media and online platforms in connecting with your target audience?

Pablo: In the events business, social media is everything. There are two platform that work very well in St Andrews- Facebook and Instagram. And both have very different objectives. Facebook relies a lot on the idea of posting an event and people clicking ‘going.’ This shows up on other people’s feeds and gets them interested- it’s an exponential effect. Instagram on the other hand is appealing to the individual visually. In such a saturated market, it’s so important to stand out, whether that is creatively sending our messaging or connecting with our audience with content.

Lila: How do you envision Latinflow contributing to the cultural diversity and entertainment landscape in St Andrews in the long term.

Pablo: It has started a big movement on campus. We have proven that cultural events can be successful in St Andrews. There have been attempts by Hispanic and Afro-Carribbean societies that haven’t been successful. The main problem, I think, is that they weren’t focussing purely on events. There were people bringing their expertise because of their relationship with the community, but they weren’t thinking of it as a marketing and creative operation where it's really about asking; how do I attract these people? What do I want to provide them? How do I cater towards these people? How do I make the best experience? Latinflow really pushed a cultural movement where you see events like Kairo now coming up and being important in their focus on Afro House. You would’ve never thought that Afro House would be possible or successful on this campus, but we’re seeing all these cultural movements connecting with the events market here. And not only that, but we provide free tickets to all the committees, whether that's the Spanish, the Hispanic or the Mexican societies, that are related to the Latino community. For these people it’s really important for them because it’s their ability to connect with their culture and homes. And you get a lot of people too who are second generation Hispanics, whether that's growing up all their life in New York or in the rest of the states or in the UK or all over the world, really being able to connect with their heritage, you know, through this music. I think that’s really beautiful.

Lila: I agree, that is beautiful. Do you have any specific goals or aspirations for the future?

Pablo: Of course. So, I’m a third year and I graduate in a year and a half, so we have already started looking at who could take over once the core team leaves, which is made up of three third years and three second years. Our goal this semester is clear- establish the Latinflow brand in St Andrews. But I have a big problem with the Fixr fee, so we are looking at ticketing independently. I think Szentek does this really well. Another plan we have is to separate Reggaeton and Latin House into two separate events. Latinflow, as always, will be associated with Reggaeton as at the core of Latino music. But I think there's definitely a potential for Latin House to thrive on this campus, and that’s something we want to explore. Whether that's full-blown club night events or independent sort of house or flat parties. We also have a good friend of ours who runs Latinfest in Edinburgh, which holds Latino nights in Edinburgh.

Lila: Are they a similar kind of event provider as Latinflow?

Pablo: Yes, they’re similar to us.

Lila: Do you attend their events often?

Pablo: I used to go to them a lot last year, which was an issue because I would have to go to Edinburgh, sleep in Edinburgh, then come back next day just to experience Latino music. I think also in terms of our vision for the next few months, it's important for us to really connect with the community through non-event activities. By that I mean we're looking into how to interact with our audience in new ways that perhaps other events haven't done well.

Lila: I hope we can help with that.

Pablo: Absolutely, I think collaborating with organisations such as this magazine is a great way to connect with our audience outside of events. We’re also looking at potentially incorporating live mixes in different parts of St Andrews. This means picking out the coolest DJs and putting them in some cool locations in St. Andrews and recording them as content, and maybe having people attend.

Lila: I followed you on Instagram before the interview, and I saw that that’s what you have been doing personally. Can you tell me more about that?

Pablo: Yeah, so I had this idea because I love to travel to foreign parts of the world to me, in particularly mountainous places, and whenever I feel like I'm in a very special place or it's a very iconic part of the trip, I stop and I set up the decks and I take a video. I made two recordings over this winter while I was backpacking through South America. One of them was done at Machu Picchu, one of the seven Wonders of the World. So cool. Which is a crazy place to record. We had a lot of a bit issues with the police to make this happen. Let's just say it's not very legal to record, but we found a way to make it work.

Lila: That's so cool. Were you backpacking by yourself?

Pablo: Some parts were by myself and some parts were with a very good high school friend of mine. I do enjoy a lot solo traveling, but I think it's better when shared.

Lila: I agree with that. Where did you go?

 Pablo: We did Chile, Peru, and Costa Rica. I love to cross borders by land because I think it’s the best way to understand the country. And that’s what I did. I landed in Santiago, Chile, I took a 4:00 AM flight to the north because Chile's very big. And from there it was a 40-minute taxi across the border to the other side. I grew up in Western Africa. My parents are humanitarians and my parents travelled around the world a little bit and I got to be with them, which was such a privilege. I grew up in Cameroon and Togo for quite a while and I had done, as a result of this, a similar trip during a gap year of six months traveling across Africa. I had done Kenya, Tanzania, Senegal, all on my own as an 18-year-old. In Senegal I had a really local experience. I worked on a very small-scale sustainable project also.

Lila: Have you always loved music? Have you ever played music before?

Pablo: I was a big drummer as a child. I started by making sense of the African drums, Djembé they are called back in Cameroon, and I picked up a drum kit from there. I wanted to get a bit more melodic, so I tried the piano, but it never stuck. I’ve always had a very keen interest for cultural music and I am a diehard for Reggaeton obviously. I also love Afrobeats, Amapiano and Deep House from my upbringing. I used to work at the Fairmont for a while, but then I discovered the events business in St Andrews. It’s an interesting phenomenon where the hype was so big after covid which inflated the prices of events to a certain point and it has stayed there ever since. There are lots of opportunities, whether that is as a photographer like yourself, videographer, DJ… and as a creative person I was very keen to get involved in this business. My entry in was as a DJ. I had some decks, my first gig was in march, and it picked up from there. This solved two problems of mine. Firstly, how do I financially sustain myself on campus? Secondly, how do I avoid having to go to Edinburgh and Dundee for Latino music?

Lila: How did you decide to collaborate with Lo’s Tacos?

Pablo: I’ve had my eye on them for a while. As a result of Latin flow, I'm very interested in the community and in any form of Latino representation on campus. You can only go so far to play Reggaeton every two weeks at an event. We collided with the idea of a club night where we served food on the premises. People go to Big Boss or Shawarma House after a night out, so why not bring the food to the club? I knew Sebastian who runs Lo’s Tacos, he's a great guy, and they've only started operating as a catering service a few weeks ago, so it was really important for us to jump on this trend. Not Applicable magazine is another one of them. It’s important to me that we collaborate with the organisations that have a lot of potential on this campus with a lot of really driven individuals who are willing to help make Latinflow happen and promote this business. I think Lo’s Tacos is going to blow up, and soon Lo’s Tacos is going to be hard to reach and hire. Having an eye for these up-and-coming organisations and groups of people is so important. The event was a logistical mess, I’m not going to lie. You don’t understand the amount of certificates that are necessary for serving food on the premises. What people don’t know is that the morning before the event Lo’s Tacos were still not allowed to serve inside, we had to call people in London to get this approved. We were so close to cancelling the event. We would have cancelled because I would have hated selling people false expectations. That would have been devastating to me. We want to be as honest and open to everyone as possible.

Lila: Once again, there is a hole in the market that Lo’s tacos and Latinflow were able to fill. Mexican food in the UK is horrible!

Pablo: Its horrible! In terms of Latinflow, it has the potential to bring all of these different societies and cultures together.

Lila: You will do amazing; I have no doubt about it. I love Latinflow, I had so much fun at the event and thank you for having N/A Mag as guests, we can’t wait for more.

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