Third String Productions
Third String Productions is a Dallas-based live entertainment company that promotes concerts, festivals, and theme events across more than ten U.S. states, running 350 or more events annually. It serves music fans across metalcore, emo, hip-hop, and underground genres, and operates recording studios, a record label, artist management, and marketing services alongside its core promotion business.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2004
- HeadquartersDallas, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2C
- OfferingServices
What Third String Productions does
Third String Productions is a Dallas-based, privately held live entertainment company founded by Mike Ziemer in 2004 that produces concerts, festivals, pool parties, and theme events across more than ten U.S. states. The company operates an event-driven business model, running 350 or more events annually and co-promoting larger-capacity shows with AEG (Houston and Dallas markets above 1,500 capacity) and Resound (Austin and San Antonio), while maintaining direct venue relationships with 60 or more partner venues. Its event portfolio is anchored by owned festival brands including So What?! Music Festival (which drew 22,000 attendees in its 2023 edition, positioned as a successor to the defunct Warped Tour and Mayhem Festival), Unsilent Night, Monster Mosh, and Restless Fest, the latter of which was spun off in 2023 into a dedicated joint operating entity called Restless Shows alongside Arturo Piña.
The company is vertically integrated across the artist value chain beyond promotion. It operates Flip A Switch Studios, a recording-studio brand with two Dallas locations (Oak Cliff, opened 2020, and Deep Ellum, opened 2021) that has attracted major-label clients including TDE and OVO. It owns Third String Records, an independent label founded in 2014 whose releases have accumulated 20 million or more streams across platforms. Flip A Switch Creative provides marketing services to artists and businesses, Flip A Switch Music Group handles artist management, and Restless Shows focuses on underground-music booking. In 2022 the company formed a strategic joint venture named Disco Punk with Disco Donnie Presents to scale the So What?! brand.
Third String Productions monetizes primarily through ticket sales distributed across four major ticketing platforms (SeeTickets, Eventim, Ticketmaster, and Etix) and through co-promotion revenue shares, professional service fees from its studios and creative arm, and label royalties. Its customer base is consumer end-attendees distributed across multiple cities and genres (metalcore, emo, pop punk, hip-hop, underground rap). The company remains founder-controlled (Mike Ziemer as Founder/CEO, Orlando Mendoza as Owner/COO), privately held with no disclosed institutional capital, and operates with a disclosed headcount in the 1-10 range, implying a high-leverage, relationship-driven operating model rather than a headcount-driven one.
Third String Productions firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Third String Productions
- Legal name
- Third String Productions
- Website
- https://thirdstringproductions.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2004
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Third String Productions is a Dallas-based live entertainment company that promotes concerts, festivals, and theme events across more than ten U.S. states, running 350 or more events annually. It serves music fans across metalcore, emo, hip-hop, and underground genres, and operates recording studios, a record label, artist management, and marketing services alongside its core promotion business.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Third String Productions industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Concert and Festival Promotion
- NAICS
- Performing Arts Companies (7111), Record Production and Distribution (512250)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Touring & Production Services (Staging, Lighting, Sound, Video) (MPAIAFAF)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Beatmakers & Track Production (MPAIAHAE), Hybrid Concerts & Live Shows (Venue + Remote Audience) (MPAGAOAE)
Keywords
Where Third String Productions is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Dallas
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices3 records
Markets served
Third String Productions business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2C
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others
Revenue model
- Event Ticketing & Production: Revenue generated from concert and festival ticket sales, event production fees, and co-promotion arrangements with venue partners and major promoters like AEG and Resound.
- Artist Marketing Services: Provides marketing services for artists, businesses, restaurants, and bars as part of their entertainment company offerings.
- Recording Studio Operations: Operates two recording studios in Dallas (Flip A Switch Studios in Oak Cliff and Deep Ellum) offering recording services to artists.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Transaction based/ take rate | Pay-as-you-go | General admission concert tickets |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels4 records
Third String Productions product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Third String Productions is a Dallas-based live event promotion company that produces concerts, festivals, pool parties, and themed events across multiple U.S. states, running over 350 events annually. The company promotes up-and-coming national acts while developing local music scenes, operates two recording studios (Flip A Switch Studios) in Dallas, runs an independent record label (Third String Records), and provides artist marketing, booking, and management services.
Product overview
Third String Productions is a premiere entertainment company that operates as a concert and festival promotion business. The core offering is event production across Texas and beyond, with over 350 events annually. The company operates across multiple product lines: music festivals including So What?! Music Festival, Unsilent Night, Monster Mosh, and Restless Fest; recording studio services through Flip A Switch Studios; marketing services via Flip A Switch Creative; artist booking through Restless Shows; and record label operations via Third String Records. The company also offers artist management through Flip A Switch Music Group. This is a services-based business rather than a software product platform.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- So What?! Music Festival: Annual music festival for metal, hardcore, pop punk, and emo fans featuring multiple stages of up-and-coming talent mixed with legacy acts
- Unsilent Night
- Monster Mosh
- Restless Fest
- Disco Punk
- Thrash Vegas
- Furnace Fest Presents
- Third String Records
- Flip A Switch Studios
- Flip A Switch Music Group
Products and services
- Third String Productions Concert and Event Promotion Core concert and festival promotion service that produces over 350 live music events annually across Texas and other U.S. markets for music fans, featuring national acts and local bands across genres including metal, hardcore, pop punk, emo, electronic, hip hop, and alternative.
- So What?! Music Festival Annual multi-stage music festival featuring up-and-coming and legacy acts in metal, hardcore, pop punk, and emo genres; established as a replacement for Warped Tour and Mayhem Festival. The 2023 edition drew over 22,000 attendees across 2 days in Dallas, TX.
- Unsilent Night Annual festival event originating at The Plano Centre, featuring multiple rooms of music from 2004-2009 and continuing as a recurring branded festival.
- Monster Mosh Festival brand produced by Third String Productions featuring heavy music acts.
- Restless Fest Festival brand focused on underground music of the next generation, featuring artists such as JPEGMafia, Glaive, OhGeesy, Lucki, Veeze, and Lil Darkie.
- Flip A Switch Studios Recording studio service with two Dallas locations (Oak Cliff and Deep Ellum) offering audio recording services to artists including Bashfortheworld, Tay Money, Lil Twist, SVDDEN DEATH, and labels such as TDE and OVO.
- Flip A Switch Creative Marketing services offered to artists, businesses, restaurants, and bars as part of the company's entertainment offerings.
- Restless Shows Booking and event production service dedicated to underground music acts including JPEGMafia, Glaive, OhGeesy, Lucki, Veeze, Lil Darkie, and Homixide Gang. Co-founded with Arturo Piña in 2023.
- Third String Records Independent record label founded in 2014 that has released music for over a dozen bands, with streams totaling over 20 million across all platforms.
- Flip A Switch Music Group Artist management company with a roster that includes songwriters, producers, engineers, and bands, run alongside Luke Knipe and Matt Dunne.
Quantifiable outcome
- 22,000+ attendees at 2023 So What?! Music Festival
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Third String Productions
Customer profileSegments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Third String Productions technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed No
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Third String Productions partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Six partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- Disco Donnie PresentscoreStrategic joint venture formed in 2022 named 'Disco Punk' to further grow the So What?! Music Festival brand. Disco Donnie Presents is a major national independent concert promotion company.
- AEGcoreCo-promotion partnership for venues larger than 1500 capacity in Houston and Dallas markets.
- ResoundcoreCo-promotion partnership in Austin and San Antonio markets (potentially also Dallas and Houston).
- Furnace FestminorPartnered with Furnace Fest in Birmingham, AL. Mike Ziemer is a partner in Furnace Fest which features bands from the late 90s and early 2000s hardcore and post-hardcore scene.
- RVLTN EventsminorPartnership with RVLTN Events in Las Vegas, Nevada under 'Thrash Vegas' branding.
- Disco Punk PresentsminorJoint branding with Disco Donnie Presents for events in Savannah, El Paso, St. Louis, and North Carolina.
Scale indicators5 records
Recent moves8 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Third String Productions competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- AEG Presents: Global live entertainment promoter and venue operator. Directly comparable as a promoter and an existing co-promotion partner of Third String for >1,500-capacity venues in Houston and Dallas, but with a vastly broader artist and venue portfolio.
- Live Nation Entertainment: The largest global concert promoter and venue operator. Overlaps with Third String across concert promotion, festival ownership, and ticketing, but operates at vastly greater scale and across all genres rather than the underground/post-hardcore niche.
Direct peers
- Danny Wimmer Presents: Independent U.S. festival producer behind events such as Sonic Temple, Louder Than Life, and Welcome to Rockville. Comparable as an independent multi-festival operator targeting rock and metal audiences, though at larger average scale than Third String.
- Riot Fest: Chicago-based independent music festival focused on punk, rock, alternative, and post-hardcore acts. Directly comparable genre focus to So What?! and serves a similar touring-festival niche in a different geography.
- Disco Donnie Presents: Independent national concert promoter specializing in electronic, EDM, and multi-genre festivals. Most directly comparable as a peer of similar scale and as Third String's JV partner in the Disco Punk vehicle for the So What?! brand.
- Furnace Fest: Annual Christian hardcore/post-hardcore festival in Birmingham, AL. Directly comparable genre and scale, and explicitly an active partner of Third String (Mike Ziemer is a partner).
Regional players
- C3 Presents: Austin-based festival and concert promoter (now operating under Live Nation C3). Comparable as a Texas-rooted promoter of festivals and live events, though historically larger and more pop/electronic-leaning.
- Bowery Presents: Independent concert promoter and venue operator focused on the Northeast U.S. (NYC in particular). Comparable as a regional indie promoter that books touring and developing artists, but geographically distinct from Third String's southern/Texas base.
- ScoreMore Shows: Texas-based independent hip-hop concert promoter. Closely comparable as a regional Texas promoter with strong local artist relationships, though concentrated in hip-hop rather than Third String's metal/punk/emo/underground mix.
Emerging players
- Good Music Company / Emo Nite: Event brand focused on emo and pop-punk themed nights and festivals. Comparable as a niche, subculture-driven live events brand in adjacent emo/alt territory, often booked through Third String venues.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Third String Productions social profiles
Digital presenceThird String Productions financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Third String Productions leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles4 records
Third String Productions subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries5 records
Third String Productions funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Third String Productions M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Third String Productions
What does Third String Productions do?
Third String Productions is a Dallas-based live event promotion company that produces concerts, festivals, pool parties, and themed events across multiple U.S. states, running over 350 events annually. The company promotes up-and-coming national acts while developing local music scenes, operates two recording studios (Flip A Switch Studios) in Dallas, runs an independent record label (Third String Records), and provides artist marketing, booking, and management services.
Is Third String Productions a public or private company?
Third String Productions is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Third String Productions founded?
Third String Productions was founded in 2004. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Third String Productions based?
Third String Productions is headquartered in Dallas, United States, in the North America region.
How does Third String Productions make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Event Ticketing & Production is the primary driver. The others are artist Marketing Services and recording Studio Operations.
Who are Third String Productions's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are AEG Presents and Live Nation Entertainment. Direct peers are Danny Wimmer Presents, Riot Fest, Disco Donnie Presents and Furnace Fest. Regional players are C3 Presents, Bowery Presents and ScoreMore Shows. Good Music Company / Emo Nite is listed as an emerging player.
Does Third String Productions have an API?
No public API is recorded for Third String Productions.
What industry is Third String Productions in?
Third String Productions's product category is Concert and Festival Promotion. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAIAFAF, Touring & Production Services (Staging, Lighting, Sound, Video), with a secondary code of MPAIAHAE, Beatmakers & Track Production. Its NAICS code is 7111.