Sugarshack Sessions: YouTube hit keeps growing with Bonita Springs venue, spinoff channel
It started with five friends who loved music and just wanted to shoot videos of cool bands. They filmed those laid-back concerts on the lush back deck of a small Bonita Springs house nicknamed the Sugarshack.
Fast forward a decade, and the Sugarshack Sessions have transformed into more than just a hobby or a side hustle for these guys. It’s a full-time business called Sugarshack Inc. that’s led to more than 400 million total views on its YouTube channel, a new behind-the-scenes spinoff and an upcoming restaurant/concert venue in downtown Bonita Springs.
Sugarshack Downtown is expected to open sometime in early 2024 on Old 41 Road, right across from the Riverside Park bandshell. And even some of the Sugarshack guys can’t quite believe how far they’ve come.
“It’s a really crazy story,” says Dave Alpert, the company’s vice president of partnerships. “You don’t see YouTube channels, or media companies, going from the digital space to the physical space very often.”
Yet that’s exactly what the Sugarshack Sessions have managed to do ― all while growing their popular Sugarshack Music Channel to 426,000 subscribers on YouTube (and even more on TikTok and other social media services). They’ve also more than doubled their number of employees to 11 ― and that number expands to 18-20 people for actual Sugarshack Sessions filming, including the hospitality team.
They say they've accomplished this by steadily posting high-quality concert videos to YouTube ― at first once a week, but now up to five to seven times a week.
“We attribute a lot of what we’ve built to consistency,” says co-founder, director and editor Eddie Kopp. “Consistency, as far as how many times we’re uploading, or consistent quality as well. ...
“We have not stopped for 10 years.”
Welcome to the Sugarshack: How the YouTube sensation got started
Sugarshack Sessions gets its name from the 900-square-foot, cottage-style house where all the concerts are filmed. Kopp lives there with his fiancee and three cats they call the “shack cats” (they’re frequent co-stars with the bands on the Sugarshack stage)
The name didn’t come from the classic Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs song, although Kopp says he’s a fan. Instead, Kopp’s former band Common Ground nicknamed it the Sugarshack while rehearsing there, long before the Sugarshack Sessions started. The reason, Kopp says, was the 1942 house’s “sweet and historic nature.”
Meanwhile, Kopp and Sugarshack co-founder Justin Kaczmarek had been dabbling in freelance videography ― shooting weddings, music videos, real-estate footage and more. Then popular Southwest Florida reggae-rock band SOWFLO asked if they’d shoot an acoustic music video for them.
“I had just moved into my house,” Kopp says. “And I said ‘I have a really tropical back deck. We could use that as our set.’
“And we did. And it turned out amazing.”
Kopp said he’d always been into live-session YouTube channels, and so he decided to do one of his own. And bring along his friends, too ― now mostly in their mid-to-late 30s.
The Sugarshack Sessions officially launched as a YouTube channel in 2014. Since then, more than 300 local, regional and touring musical acts have performed on that back deck surrounded by palm trees, string lights and tiki torches. There's also the show's mascot, a gnome statue named Gnomeo. He's "attended" every show.
“It started with local artists,” Kopp says. “Me and Alex (co-founder Alex Casement), we were in bands. So we started with bands that we had played with … and our friends, whether it was locally or regionally in the state of Florida.”
The first Sugarshack Session featured local singer-songwriter Frankie Colt (now known as Frankie Orion). And that led to even more bands ― some local, some touring.
The biggies have been largely reggae and reggae-rock acts, including SOJA, Big Mountain, Rebelution and Fortunate Youth (that band’s performance of “Burn One” has racked up 16 million views and counting). But they’ve also filmed folk, acoustic, indie, hip-hop and other genres.
Sugarshack Downtown: New restaurant/concert venue set for Bonita Springs
Things have been growing quickly for Sugarshack Incorporated. In December, the company moved into a new 2,000-square-foot office space off Old 41 Road, including a warehouse for Sugarshack-themed merchandise.
Next up: Sugarshack Downtown, a collaboration between Sugarshack Sessions, Bonita development company Moran Kennedy and Maine-based brewery/restaurant chain Brickyard Hollow Brewing Co.
They broke ground on the property about six or seven months ago, Alpert says.
The 20,000-square-foot Sugarshack Downtown property is being developed around an existing, 1943 building at the intersection of Childers Street and Old 41.
That 1,200-square-foot building will house some indoor dining, a bar and a retail store selling Sugarshack merchandise, Kopp says. It’ll be surrounded by seven to 10 smaller open-air buildings, including the kitchen, a large outdoor bar, bathrooms and open-air pergola-style buildings for outdoor seating, Kopp says.
In all, the venue will have about 270 seats. Covered seating makes up about 75 percent of the property’s footprint, Kopp says.
And, of course, there will be lots of music, too. Alpert says Sugarshack Sessions will shoot concerts both there and at the old Sugarshack house.
“It’s going to be a great space,” Alpert says. “We can kind of adapt and flex based on what kind of event we’re holding. We’re going to have great music. Sugarshack’s known for its acoustic flavor.”
Brickyard Hollow Brewing Co. will handle the food and drinks, including craft beer and award-winning gourmet pizza, says CEO and co-founder Rob Bolduc.
Bolduc moved to Estero about five years ago ― the same year Brickyard opened its first location in Yarmouth, Maine ― and says he was looking to expand the company in Southwest Florida. That eventually led to Sugarshack and its preexisting plan to build a concert venue.
The Bonita location will be Brickyard’s first in Florida, but Bolduc hopes to expand elsewhere in the Sunshine State.
It’s a good partnership, he says. Both companies love music, he says, and they both believe deeply in a sense of community.
“This is not cliché: We’re singularly focused on bringing people together,” Bolduc says. “And that really ties in well with the Sugarshack group. They likewise have a very similar culture.”
New channel whatalife looks behind the scenes at Sugarshack
As if that’s not enough, Sugarshack also launched its first spinoff channel about a month ago on YouTube. It’s called whatalife.
The channel offers a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of the Sugarshack Sessions and the personalities who put it together.
“We felt like it was time to bring people in on the individuals behind the brand,” Kopp says. “We have a very unique team and a very tight-knit, family vibe to our team.
“So we felt it was time to personalize our brand and bring people in on who’s actually doing all this.”
The timing seemed perfect, especially with Sugarshack Downtown expected to open in early 2024.
“It’s just time to tell our story,” Kopp says. “We’re getting in front of the cameras, getting in front of the microphones, for the first time and showing people who really is bringing all this to life.”
The new channel posts new videos every other Friday.
The documentary-style vlog posts will also cover travel, adventure and lifestyle content, plus the ongoing journey to opening the downtown restaurant/concert venue.
“It’ll just be a place to tell stories,” Kopp says.
More developments at Sugarshack, including tickets to show tapings
That’s not all that’s been happening over the last few years with Sugarshack Sessions. There’s a podcast, the independent music label Sugarshack Records (which releases free, streaming versions of the YouTube concerts) and a web store selling Sugarshack-branded hats, keychains, posters, T-shirts and even guitar and guitar-pick shaped earrings.
Then there’s the new Sugarshack Sessions Experience, where Sugarshack fans can attend live tapings of the Sugarshack Sessions.
The Sugarshacks Sessions Experience grew from comments fans would leave on YouTube, Alpert says. They all want to know how they could attend a live taping.
“For years, it was only friends and family,” Alpert says about the show's in-person audience. “And then finally the dam broke and we tried it on for size. …
“We wanted people who were fans for years, that had been watching this thing build on YouTube, we wanted them to have that same experience.”
The result: A big win for the Sugarshack.
Tickets are $300 ― including food from an in-house chef ― but good luck getting a ticket anytime soon: The sessions are sold out through the end of November. Seating is limited to 20 people per taping.
But no matter how many changes come to Sugarshack Inc., Kopp says, the company will always have the same focus: It’s all about the musicians and the musical experience.
The YouTube videos stream for free, and Sugarshack never charges the musical acts, he says. Because many of the company’s co-founders know exactly what it’s like to be musicians.
“The majority of us are musicians first,” Kopp says. “Even before Sugarshack existed, some of us were in bands.
“So, from my perspective, personally, I’ve been on that side of the camera. I know what artists want and look for … I think that goes a long way in what we do.”
Sugarshack Sessions posts new videos at 8 p.m. weekdays. Learn more at sugarshacksessions.com.
Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. For news tips or other entertainment-related matters, call him at 239-335-0368 (for tickets to shows, call the venue) or email him at [email protected]. You can also connect with him on Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), X (formerly Twitter) (@charlesrunnells), Threads (@crunnells1) and Instagram (@crunnells1).
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: YouTube hit Sugarshack grows with SW Florida venue, whatalife channel
