Today we’d like to introduce you to Carlos Neal. They and their team shared their story with us below:
Carlos Neal was born in the Southwest Community of Atlanta, Georgia at Grady Hospital, and have attended Atlanta Public System Schools and colleges his entire life. Carl attended Peyton Forest Elementary, was the first graduating class of Southwest Middle School renamed to Jean Child Young Middle School after former Mayor Andrew Young’s Wife, and attended Fredrick Douglass, North Atlanta, Harper Archer, ultimately graduated from Benjamin E Mays for High School.
During his time in high school, Carlos’ developed his passion for giving back by serving as an instructor for the City of Atlanta’s initiative to “Bridge the Digital Divide” in his local community’s Empowerment Zone; This program focused on low-income households and serviced children k2-12, seniors, and adults looking to learn basic computer literacy skills. This program was developed under former Mayor Bill Campbell Administration (very ironic).
In college, Carl attended Southern Polytechnic State University whereas he was one of 6 young men who Chartered a local chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, called Tau Zeta Chapter. At Southern Poly, this is where Carl began his event planning career, planning the first ever Black History Month Step Show in 2002 and countless other events on campus, aimed to increase the African American participation at this predominantly white campus. In 2005 Carl graduated from Georgia State University whereas he majored in Corporate Finance and Investments and in 2015 gained his Master’s Degree in Machine Learning and AI from Georgia Institute of Technology.
From 2005 – 2018, Carlos worked with multiple companies building out entire Business Intelligence Department Data Science Departments, serving in multiple roles from database architect, data engineering, technical lead, and later went to Microsoft as a Principal Cloud Architect with a focus in Data & AI.
Over the years, Carl has used his technical acumen alongside with gorilla promotional tactics to create a promotional company called iPartyATL Entertainment. It was through this company that Carl learned how to do large-scale events that catered to young professionals such as “Professional Relaxation” and “First Fridays Atlanta” alongside with thousands of weekly events over the last decade. Like his clientele, Carl’s interest grew beyond night clubs and he began to host special events. Since Carl’s events were no longer just “parties,” Carl’s company grew and thus after 9 Partners, LLC was born. After 9 Partners was the name that emerged from his partnership with Clifford Harris aka T.I. at the shuttered restaurant Scales 925. (After) Scales (9)25. Since then, Carl has done special events at most notability Biltmore, Fairmont, 200 Peachtree that attracted over 3K people, and concerts in Miami, Atlanta, New York, and Virginia that attracted over 8K people, and now the FreakNik Festivals that attract over 18K professionals in its inaugural year of 2019.
At Microsoft, Carlos served on the Diversity & Inclusion panels and co-produced Criminal Justice Reforms forums, securing influencers such as Roland Martin, David Banner, Roc Nation, Todd Gurley and many more. Carlos also advocated for his local Historically Black College at Microsoft, helping Morris Brown College in their rebranding initiatives and obtaining sponsorship from Microsoft for their EA Sports Program.
In 2019, Carlos decided to rebranded FreakNik into a format that celebrates the historical achievements of this event on the City of Atlanta, into a Festival format that resulted in an 18,000 person event and was acknowledged by the State of Georgia for highlighting Women Rights, Importance of Voting, Know Your Rights, Sex Trafficking, and Health Fair. In 2020, Carlos Partnered with the City of South Fulton to lead a March in his community, highlighting Black Fathers during the Black Lives Movement. Currently, Carlos is working with Hulu as an executive producer to produce the 40th Anniversary Documentary of FreakNik scheduled to air in Q3 2023.
In 2021, Carlos served as the Digital Campaign Manager for Current Mayor Khalid Kamau’s Mayoral Campaign. Mayor Khalid is a proud member of the LGBTQ Community and the first-ever Black Lives Matter Activist elected to Public Office.
Carlos currently serves as a contract Chief Technology Officer and technology consultant for a few web3 publicly traded companies, a unique role that allows him to combine his passions in both technology & entertainment while pushing forward his philanthropic passions to increase Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion. From an entertainment perspective, Carlos has led the development of state-of-the-art mobile apps, integrating web3 technology, OTT Programmatic Advertising via live Streaming, and is now helping to produce Festivals, Tours, and Media via a few organizations.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Entertainment industry is very cutthroat.
From having my former partner of Scales 925, Charles Hughes, cause me to lose my investment, having to successfully sue NFL Hall of Famer Edgerrin James from his investment in One Cigar Lounge, losing my investment in a Web3 Company built on lies, dealing with the City of Atlanta bias when it comes to securing permits for the FreakNik festivals and thus losing over 400K, or having national artists either infringe or outright try to steal your brand, I have learned while there are better ways to make a living other than the entertainment industry, sometimes your calling and passions often lead you through the road less traveled and the difficulty associated with the process. You have to learn to fall in love with the process.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
The Hulu documentary asked me, “To you is FreakNik a business?” This was an interesting question. I feel like EVERYTHING is a business from a non-profit, community service, college campus organization to corporations. But I feel if I had treated FreakNik like a business, I would not have the financial debt I have today.
In 2019, I had to charge an average ticket price of $60 to cover the costs of talent, venue, security, staff, production, etc etc. But like most people, I feel as though FreakNik should be affordable if not free with the right corporate sponsorships.
Had I treated FreakNik like a business, with inflation, I would have increased the price, which would have still been less than most notable festivals in Atlanta. I also would not be dealing with the vast amount of debt I’ve incurred as a result of this.
In 2020, I moved the event to an HBCU and aimed to both cut prices in half while also bringing awareness to Morris Brown’s goal to regain their accreditation. My goal with FreakNik was a focus of business but more so a legacy play. I feel if I can make FreakNik be this event that a celebration of Atlanta’s history & culture, I would have done something no one else have been able to accomplish. Proving I have done 3 FreakNIk’s since 2019 with no issues and have made them all positive, I feel like I’m well on my way in establishing this legacy.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Helping make FreakNik an acceptable event that is recognized for its contributions in making Atlanta the Black Mecca it is today! Extremely proud that MetaworksPlatforms.io / MusicFX.io & MWPEG are the first corporations to truly embrace FreakNik and come on as a partner. It’s because of them we was able to accomplish the FreakNik we did in 2023 and have ticket prices start off at $10!
Contact Info:
- Website: FreakNikFest.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/freaknikfestival
- Facebook: facebook.com/freaknikfestival
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cneal06/
- Twitter: twitter.com/freaknikfest
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@after9partners
