Up and Up Charlotte Is Building The Charlotte EDM and House Scene, One Night At A Time
The City of Charlotte is known as one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. Up & Up Charlotte hopes to harness this power to develop the music scene in the city up to the level found in other big cities throughout the United States. The goal of Up & Up is to bring house and EDM music to students and local crowds from the area through their live shows and festivals.
Founded in June 2026, Up & Up Charlotte is a house and electronic music promoting group founded on the concept of music’s ability to perform in ways that cities often struggle to do. The idea is simple yet effective: crowd the right number of people into a room, give them a performance that they will never forget… and watch the simple room transform into an auditory experience.
The business partners include West Graham, Shiven Narang, David Jann and Rico Martinez: students who are enthusiastic about the music business and hope to make changes in the youth culture of Charlotte. Judging from their first event, one can confidently say that they are doing exactly what they promised. "We want to create a community that is not centered around partying," Graham said. "We want it to be made up of good people and good music."
This mission comes in a particular form on campus. UNC Charlotte gathers students from dozens of different backgrounds and hometowns, and although diversity is one of the best features of the university, it does not mean automatically connecting. Students could spend four years at the university and still feel alienated. Up & Up sees its events as a way of closing this gap. Above providing a good time spent to those you attend, their goal is to create a circle of people who will return, knowing and connecting with one another to eventually create their own statement scene within Charlotte. With an emphasis on community, Up & Up Charlotte uses its platform to fuse music and campus culture to deliver live events and moments that students will remember.
The next step is bigger than a bar show. Up & Up is running a presale push for the Up & Up College Festival Series, a competition in which the four schools that move the most presale tickets get a “mystery headliner” brought to their campus to perform. Tickets are $34 with no taxes or fees, and students are only charged if UNC Charlotte finishes in the top four. The presale opens Sept. 15 and runs for 48 hours only. Venue, date, and the artist all stay hidden until the winning schools are announced, meaning that students are essentially voting with their tickets.
That format puts the outcome in the hands of the student body, which fits what the company says it is going for. A headliner does not come to campus because a promoter wrote a big enough check: it comes because enough people wanted it in the same 48 hours. What comes across most in talking to the people behind Up & Up is that they are not thinking about one sold out night, they are thinking about what the music scene could look like in a few years. Charlotte's music culture is actively being written, and a city this diverse has a real chance to build something that does not look like anywhere else in the country. It takes repetition and persistence. It takes people who keep booking shows when the turnout is small and keep believing that the room will fill.
"I joined Up & Up to bring a real music community into Charlotte," Norman said. "This city is a hotspot of college students who love house and EDM, and I wanted to be a part of the thing that connects those people to the music."
For students who want in: whether that means buying a presale ticket, going to a show, DJing, or working on the team, find and reach out to Up & Up on Instagram at @upandupcharlotte.