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“I’m always about doing things first and really breaking the mold and breaking barriers, especially in the DJ world,” John Summit says. That mentality spawned the 32-year-old DJ’s idea to embark on his first-ever arena tour.
For any DJ, organizing a global arena tour is a tall order, as their home away from home is typically nightclubs and music festivals. While Summit has become a fixture in those spaces in recent years, he also saw an opportunity for something bigger.
Following one-off shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles’ Kia Forum, Summit admits he didn’t even want to flirt with the idea of a full arena run initially because there are a limited number of DJs capable of pulling off a tour on a similar scale to massive mainstream pop acts.
Sure, a handful of DJs such as The Chainsmokers and Kaskade have launched their own versions of arena and stadium tours. Still, Summit considers his multi-country CTRL ESCAPE Arena Tour a particularly unique and ambitious opportunity, as he’s the sole headliner on each date, and it’s strictly a DJ set rather than mixed in with pop performances.
“There’s been DJs who’ve played arenas, but to this scale and this level, this is a very ambitious tour and it’s not something I technically have to do because obviously the clubs and festivals and everything has been working so well,” Summit tells The Hollywood Reporter. “But because I did those one-off shows and they worked out super well, I knew that I had the confidence to actually take the show on the road.”
Luckily for Summit, the tour’s visual concept came easily as his sophomore album CTRL ESCAPE already had a theme centered around breaking out of the corporate 9-to-5 “matrix.” The notion was personal for Summit, as he left his job as a CPA in 2019 to follow his passion for music — and it clearly worked out.
“The fans can relate as well too because you’re going to that show; they probably all worked their 9-to-5 during the day to then be able to afford the ticket at night,” Summit says. “So it’s going to be that show is their way of breaking out of that.”
It was important for Summit to build a world that his fans could truly escape into, so he leaned on his creative director, Alex Alvga, who also worked on his sophomore album and other shows, to channel the corporate-to-rave transformation that originated in his “LIGHTS GO OUT” music video.
“We used the music video to drive the whole rollout of the album, and from there we just built the whole narrative,” Alvga tells THR. “Then for the arenas, we just wanted to keep building on that.”
The attention was in the detail, from Summit’s mixing table looking like an old computer monitor to the speakers having a ’90s computer casing around them, to backup dancers wearing corporate attire dancing in cubicle-like structures.
“We have a lot of stuff that plays into that same aesthetic that we’ve been playing up until now, because of course the best thing as a fan is just when everything feels cohesive,” Alvga says.
But the team didn’t slack on lighting, automation, lasers, pyro and practical effects either, a necessity for what is essentially a massive dance party. Summit delivers several immersive moments throughout the show, from dropping 1,200 employee performance review papers over the crowd to a fired/hired bit with audience members who aren’t dancing enough.
All these elements are key components for the narrative Summit aims to tell during his four-act performance. “I can’t really think of any DJs who really do an actual story throughout a set,” the DJ says.
Alvga says it “starts with a control, then we go into the escape section and then we go into the Experts Only section,” which is act three and will feature Summit in the crowd at the much more intimate B stage. “By that moment in the show, the narrative already explains the workers have escaped. Now it’s time to party and have fun,” the creative director says of the fourth and final act, titled “release.”
With the visuals, design and story set, the last — and arguably the most important — piece of the puzzle is the music.
When it comes to his other shows, Summit often finalizes the set hours before taking the stage and “it’s not even an official set list because I get on stage and I switch it up,” he says.
However, with a tour of this scale, there’s much more at play behind the scenes. “Honestly, the biggest challenge for me is getting the music done ahead of time and then not going full improv with it,” Summit says.
Thankfully for his team, this DJ found his perfect mix. “I know how I’m going to start, I know I’m going to finish [and] I know the big moments in the middle,” he says, while also weaving in moments “to get a little spicy with it and creative.”
As Summit sets out on this new chapter, he’s excited to learn and grow with each show. As for his fans, he hopes that by the end of the night, “the phones are down, you’re dancing, you’re in the moment.”
Fans will also need to be locked in so they don’t miss potential surprises, special guests and an outfit change or two. “I’m starting in my [accountant] suit and I guarantee you I won’t be finishing it in the suit,” Summit quips.
However, despite having a group of backup dancers, don’t expect Summit to debut a whole dance routine. “I’ll do my typical fist bump, don’t worry,” he says with a laugh. “But no breakdancing or anything. I’m not going to go full Tate McRae or anything.”
That’s the fans’ responsibility — lest they get fired by the boss on the first day now.
He says, “It’s kind of cool to turn an arena into the world’s biggest nightclub for a night.”
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