Meet Théa Irizarry | Ice cream enthusiast & concert promoter

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

Hi Théa, how does your business help the community?
Ice Cream Social exists to help the community become more connected. We want to see neighbors not only be known, but become friends! As much as we love local music and making ice cream, the people are really what this business is all about. Our hope is to be a safe space where people come to engage with their neighborhood, and that they like it so much that they come again and again. And on the music side of things, we want the artists who come to play for us to leave feeling like they have the support not only of the community, but also of the other artists with whom they share the stage. If anyone leaves Ice Cream Social feeling less alone than when they came in, we would consider that a great success.

What should our readers know about your business?
Ice Cream Social exists to build local community and help emerging artists in the LA area break into the live music scene. We do this by allowing artists to play without requiring evidence of past ticket sales, with the goal of the community rallying around them and coming to support whether they know the music or not. We value people over profit, storytelling over selling, and having a lot of fun! Someday we hope to open our own brick and mortar venue–an ice cream shop in the front and the stage in the back room. For now, we’re running it as a pop-up concert series and seeing where it goes!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Eat & Drink:
pretty much any street taco pop-up or food truck
Inkwell Tavern, Burbank
Acai Jungle, Burbank
Kaleido Coffee, Burbank
Guild Hall, Burbank
Pitfire Pizza, North Hollywood
Hop Merchants, North Hollywood
We’re Pouring, Glendale
Golden Road Brewing, Glendale
Fosselman’s Ice Cream Co., Alhambra
Craft by Smoke and Fire, LA Live
Grand Central Market, Downtown

Visit/Do:
Hike in Brand Park, Glendale
Geeky Teas & Games, Burbank
Griffith Observatory (after dark)
See a show at The Hollywood Bowl or Greek Theatre
LA Zoo
Universal Studios
Santa Monica Pier/Third Street Promenade
The Last Bookstore
One of the studio tours (I’d probably pick Warner Bros. but they’re all a lot of fun)

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
First, I have to thank my college roommate and best friend Alexis Colson for helping me come up with this idea, working it out with me, and encouraging its growth at every step in the process so far. Ice Cream Social would quite literally not exist without her!

Second, I want to shout out the two teachers that have had the most influence on what I’m trying to do with my career: my high school band director Larry Widener, who ran his classroom like a part of the real world and taught me as much about life as he did about perfect fifths and playing percussion, and Jeff Izzo, my department chair in college who helped me find my way into live events and was the first person the Ice Cream Social idea was pitched to who wasn’t my mom.

Website: https://www.icecreamsocial-la.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/icecreamsocial.la

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/la.icecreamsocial/

Image Credits
Ana Miller, Tyler Disney