Meet Brad Sweet | CEO and Co-Founder of Same Same But Different Music Festival & Same Same Presents

We had the good fortune of connecting with Brad Sweet and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Brad, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
At its core, Same Same But Different is a big loving community disguised as a music festival. We started it because we wanted a place where people could come together, feel seen, and feel free to be themselves, and that intention shapes almost every decision we make.

On a local level, SSBD brings real economic impact to Southern California, the city of Perris and the surrounding area. We hire local crews, work with local vendors and small businesses, book regional artists, and bring thousands of people into hotels, restaurants, and shops that would not see that tourism otherwise. A big part of our budget goes right back into the community through jobs, vendor fees, rentals, and services.

Socially, the festival is designed for connection, not just consumption. Our crowd tends to be a little older and more intentional, and we build spaces that encourage genuine interaction – workshops, shared experiences on the beach, boat rides, group activities, and places where strangers end up leaving as friends. In a world where most people feel more isolated and online, creating an environment where people feel safe, included, and in real community is a huge part of our mission.

We also care about the impact we have on the land and the people who will use that park after us. We lean into Leave No Trace culture, encourage guests to take responsibility for their footprint, and are always working on ways to reduce waste and do things more sustainably year after year. It is not perfect, but every improvement we make becomes the new baseline for the future.

On the industry side, we try to be a platform for rising artists who are often stuck between playing tiny club shows and getting on big festival lineups. Giving them a real stage, real audience, and real support helps them grow their careers, which in turn keeps independent music culture alive. So the social impact is layered: it is economic, it is cultural, and it is about mental and emotional well being for everyone who touches the festival.

What should our readers know about your business?
Same Same But Different is a music festival, but the real product is how it feels when you’re there.

We are a three day camping festival on a lake in Southern California, with a capacity that tops out around seventy five hundred people. That size is intentional. It is big enough to have world class artists and production, but small enough that you still run into the same people all weekend, artists are walking around hanging with fans, and it actually feels like a community instead of a crowd.

What sets us apart is the mix of music, environment, and culture. You can watch a headliner from the beach at sunset, then be on a boat to an island party, then be in a workshop the next morning doing breathwork or a painting class with the same people you were on the dance floor with the night before. Our crowd skews a little older, a lot of people in their late twenties, thirties, forties, who want something more intentional than a massive rave, so we program for that. Connection, play, and actual rest are just as important as the lineup.

Business wise, none of this was easy. We started with a small DIY festival that probably should not have worked on paper. I did not come from big corporate events, so the early years were a lot of learning by doing, and sometimes learning by messing it up first. We had to figure out how to build real systems around things that used to be friends in a group chat. Cash flow, permits, safety, production costs, weather, pandemics, all of it forces you to grow up as a business very fast.

The way we got through that was by being brutally honest about the numbers, being transparent with our team and partners, and constantly listening to our audience. When something did not work, we owned it and fixed it the next year. When something did work, we doubled down and systemized it. Over time that turned into a real company with departments, directors, and a long term plan instead of a once a year scramble.

Some of the biggest lessons I have learned:

= Protect the culture first. If the experience stops feeling special for the people who show up, nothing else matters.

– Take care of your team, be kind to your team, show love to your team. Festivals are intense. People remember how you treated them when things were hard.

– Grow at the speed of your values, not just the speed of opportunity. There are always faster ways to make money that are not aligned with why we started.

– Give people a sense of ownership. Our community, artists, and partners are not just customers, they are part of building this thing.

What I want the world to know about SSBD is that it is built by people who genuinely care. About the land we are on, about the local community we are in, about the artists we book, and about the humans who choose to spend their time and money with us. It is not perfect and it has not been a straight line, but it is real. If you come to the festival, my hope is that you leave feeling more connected, more inspired, and more like yourself. That is the story I am most proud of.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If my best friend flew into San Diego for a week, I’d basically build them a sampler platter of everything I love here: beaches, fish tacos, breweries, and little pockets of this weird, beautiful community.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
First, my parents. Although they sometimes thought this idea was off-the-wall, they never told me to get a “real job” when I started chasing this crazy idea of building a festival. Their attitude was always, “If you are going to do it, do it all the way and do it with integrity.” That gave me permission early on to think big and not apologize for it.

I have to shout out my partner Stephanie, who has seen every peak and valley up close. Festivals look glamorous from the outside, but behind the scenes it is long days, stress, financial risk, and a lot of unknowns. Having someone beside me who believes in the vision, grounds me as a human, and still shows up with love when I am buried in spreadsheets, is a huge part of why I can keep going.

Then there is the SSBD crew. Starting with my business partner and co-founder Peter who spent countless late nights many stressful weeks working on this, often times taking the reigns when life threw curveballs, without him there is no SSBD. Also the people who were out there in year one and year two, when there were not many resources, not much sleep, and a whole lot of “we are just going to figure this out.” Some of them were working for almost nothing besides a wristband and the belief that we were building something special. Our current directors, staff, and volunteers have turned that scrappy idea into a real, professional operation, and they do it with heart.

I also want to shout out the artists who took a chance on us before we had big headliners or name recognition. The ones who said yes to playing on the beach at a little festival at Lake Perris because they felt the energy and trusted the vision. Those early “yeses” really mattered.

Finally, our community. The people who buy a ticket, come back year after year, bring their friends, pick up trash that is not theirs, welcome new people into their camp, and treat this festival like home instead of a product. They are the reason sponsors want to work with us, the reason artists want to come back, and the reason we can even talk about the “future” of SSBD.

So my shoutout is to all of them. I might be the one doing the interview, but this thing exists because a lot of people decided to believe in it.

Website: https://www.ssbdfest.com

Instagram: @mrbradsweet / @ssbdfest

Youtube: https://youtube.com/ssbdfest