Drag and Drop: Sonny Hall on Scaling UNLOCKED Globally

Sonny Hall sat down with EDM Identity to tell the full story of UNLOCKED, from Shoreditch to Miami and beyond. It’s been a year and a half since Sonny Hall opened UNLOCKED Shoreditch, a multifaceted, 24,000-square-foot event space in East London. When it came time to do the same for Miami’s UNLOCKED Wynwood this August, the process had changed beyond recognition. “We’ve turned up in Miami a whole different business,” Hall told EDM Identity over video chat. But therein lies the beauty of UNLOCKED. The venue brand was meant to be modular from the beginning, meaning it can adapt to whatever hurdles come with the global expansion at the heart of its business model. UNLOCKED Wynwood’s main indoor hall. “We’ve got two rules as a company,” Hall explained. “One is that we never do a massive opening party as that ends up being a peak point and we’d rather see an upward trajectory. Number two is that nothing is fixed. Everything is very much a blank canvas, and that way, we can operate both sides of the business as smoothly as possible.” That flexibility belies the very genesis of UNLOCKED. In July 2024, Hall and company acquired the “big, concrete, open-floor-plan” building with “incredible...