Ben Riseman

Born In Philly, spent my youngest years just outside Boston until we moved to Michigan where I fell in love with  the legendary Detroit punk scene.  I graduated highschool in the lovely city of Flint, and attended my first year of college in Big Rapids studying computer networks and systems. Once I decided I didn’t want to be handcuffed to a General Motors network server for the rest of my life, I registered for a workshop at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles where I would later move to after extending my  education in film directing  @ Columbia College.   Chicago.  While In LA I spent the first 4 years hopping back in forth between work in both the film and video game industry throwing and going to local punk shows whenever possible until I managed to open up a warehouse venue of my own.  There we provided the community with a safe space to create, engage and perform anything from live art shows to fashion shows to  live punk rock Dodgeball music shows. We even turned the industrial parking lot into a urban edible garden.  We still have the zine we produced to prove it!! After coming onto its 4th year it was time to move on as the city of Los Angeles along with its Police Department officially disabled our ability to operate by bogging us down with expensive and over the top requirements to avoid incarceration. By this time I had a woman I was in love with named who grew up in Texas, which coincidentally happens to be one of the most supportive cities for live music. So we packed up and moved to Austin where I eventually took over the building that had just held one of Austin’s most beloved music venues and made it my own. One thing I quickly learned is that Austinites don’t care much for Californians, especially when they think  you’re responsible shutting down their dream factory.  Needless to say the venue didn’t last long though it wasn’t due to angry customers and their boycotts (though they tried) it was because of something much more nefarious and disturbing regarding the way certain people do business in the industry here, but.. that’s a whole other story. Since it’s closing I took whatever money I had left and invested it into the stock and crypto market where I did surprisingly well and have since then used the money to support myself and family including hiring a dev studio to work on a demo for an idea that I have been holding onto since I was a software tester back in lo Angeles about 12 years ago. So far its been incredibly exciting and I cannot wait to see where my partner and I are able to take this thing with the help of Mediatech Ventures. 🙂