Connor Treacy The Nightlife Impresario

It’s May 30, 2025. If you’re in the HEAT Ultra Lounge in Anaheim, CA, you can feel the bass vibrate the concrete underfoot. The LED chandelier paints the crowd in lavender hues. It sounds like your typical nightclub, yet the attendees are anything but.

Labor organizers and music producers share the dance floor. A California state senator chats with local activists near the bar. The Getty photographer documenting it all isn’t shooting for Page Six, but capturing the Working Families Party’s reception during the California Democratic Convention — a political gathering that feels distinctly unpolitical.

Manning the turntable and producing the event is Connor Treacy. At 32, he cuts an intriguing figure with a past you wouldn’t expect out of a progressive activist. His resume includes multi-million-dollar clubs, Grammy-certified projects, and, now, political organizing. He once curated vibes for Hollywood’s elite, but his focus these days is on progressive politics. Now, he’s dedicated to creating spaces where elected officials and young voters can connect through cultural experiences and not just another stump speech.

The Launchpad of Virality

March 2, 2012: Project X debuts on the big screen, recounting the misadventures of a teen trio who hope to boost their social status by throwing the ultimate house party that quickly gets out of hand.

Just an hour away from where the movie was shot, 19-year-old Treacy is celebrating the film’s release by orchestrating his own mansion rager that rivals the film’s chaotic energy. The party is his first experience with virality, exploding beyond expectations and drawing nearly 1,000 people to the mansion — almost causing a riot and landing him in national news, with footage of the party racking up over a million views on YouTube.

It was a night that Treacy could have easily chalked up to impulsive teenage rebellion, but he instead leaned into his success and launched a career in the competitive arena of LA nightlife.

Over the next few years, Treacy made a name for himself by renting out venues and booking rising stars like hip-hop’s YG, running his marketing strategy entirely out of social media.

“I started basically booking artists off Google, renting out 18-plus nightclubs, and selling tickets on Facebook,” he explains.

He funded these ventures with cash earned from private tennis lessons, where he made anywhere from $25 to $50 an hour. But by 21, Treacy had no more need for side hustles; he’d become a go-to connector for celebrity clientele at prestigious LA venues like 1OAK and Tao Group.

“I kind of became the main young promoter that brought all the celebrities,” he says. “Bieber, Kardashian, Travis Scott — I was your guy.”

At 24, Universal Music Group hired him as its artists and repertoire manager. There, he developed artists like Yungblud and contributed to projects with Halsey and Travis Barker. He even managed the producer of Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, earning himself a credit on an album that won Best Pop Vocal Album at the Grammys.

From Hyde to Hideaway: The OffSunset Phenomenon

It wasn’t long before Treacy found himself drawn back to nightlife. After his stint at Interscope, he co-founded OffSunset, a West Hollywood venue that quickly became one of the city’s most coveted reservations and generated over $4 million in its first year..

Located in the former Hyde building, which had sat unoccupied for over a decade, OffSunset became a household name among the rich and famous as a prohibitively exclusive yet unapologetically authentic experience. True to the “Off” part of its name — which stood for “only friends and family” — the venue was a 150-capacity sanctuary that attracted entertainment industry insiders, celebrities, and creatives seeking refuge from the typical Hollywood scene. The club’s ultimate luxury wasn’t anything on the menu; it was authenticity and privacy, featuring a strict no-photo policy that encouraged guests to be fully present rather than performing for social media.

The list of celebrities who passed through its doors reads like who’s who of modern pop culture: Travis Scott, Tom Holland, The Chainsmokers, Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, Diplo, Benny Blanco, Mike Dean — there was no shortage of fame at OffSunset, and it was regularly the home of high-profile events like Mike Dean’s Pre-Grammy Party.

But notably absent from many of these events? Connor Treacy.

Breaking Out of the “Nightlife Guy” Box

By 30, Treacy had viral moments, built a multi-million-dollar venue, worked with A-list talent, and contributed to Grammy-winning projects. But Treacy never fully felt like he was part of that world. Even during the height of OffSunset, he’d go to bed before 2 a.m. so he could get an earlyish start on legal matters and contract negotiations the next day.

He didn’t drink, didn’t care for the afterparties… nor did he know what was brewing just under the surface.

Not until January 6, 2021.

That day, Treacy was one of millions of Americans who watched in disbelief as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent the certification of the 2020 election.

“I was definitely thrown off by January 6,” he reflects. “I wasn’t even sure where I stood politically, but that’s when things started to change. That’s when I felt like I could make a difference.”

But his path from entertainment to engagement wasn’t immediately clear. He’d already made a name for himself in celebrity culture, and pivoting to political activism would not come easy. Bottle service receipts hold little currency on Capitol Hill, and name-dropping wouldn’t get him face time with anyone on the left side of the aisle.

To transcend the “nightlife guy” stereotype, Treacy doubled down on education. He enrolled in USC’s prestigious Master of Studies in Law program at the Gould School of Law, which he completed while simultaneously beginning an MBA at USC’s Marshall School of Business (expected 2026). In 2023, he interned for the Mayor of El Segundo, giving him firsthand insight into municipal governance and policy-making.

His next move was far less conventional. After watching a Netflix documentary about Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Treacy researched her political affiliations and discovered the Working Families Party, a progressive political organization that’s backed candidates including AOC, Bernie Sanders, and Brad Lander, the NYC mayoral candidate who was recently arrested by ICE and released without charges.

In a moment of sheer Treacy audacity, he slid into their DMs.

“I cold DMed them, and then the director responded to me,” Treacy recounts, still surprised the move worked with a political party with 200K followers (as if he hadn’t pulled the same move on celebs with millions of followers). “And I’ve been working with them now for, like, four months.”

The De-corporatization of Progressive Politics

Treacy’s partnership with the Working Families Party quickly bore fruit. In May 2025, he collaborated with Jane Kim, the CA director for the Working Families Party (and Bernie Sanders’ 2020 California political director), to host a progressive reception at the California Democratic Convention in Los Angeles.

Rather than the typical hotel ballroom, the event was held in a downtown nightclub and drew approximately 350 attendees, including civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, State Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, and other elected officials and activists.

The guest list wasn’t the only thing that set the event apart. Treacy brought his trademark atmosphere to the event, applying the same attention to spatial design, lighting, and sound that had made OffSunset so successful. But perhaps most importantly, there was no stage or podium separating political leaders from attendees. Speakers shared insights in intimate side conversations, not through formal programming.

The result? An environment where meaningful connections could form naturally.

It’s a deliberate shift away from the corporate aesthetics that have come to dominate political events — the sterile conference rooms, formal galas, and standardized fundraisers that often feel disconnected from the communities they serve. By breaking the tired format of stage-audience division, it creates a space where elected officials, organizers, and attendees can interact as equals.

This de-corporatization of the political experience has become central to Treacy’s vision. “A lot of these events that I’ve been doing, it’s crazy,” he reminisces. “You could literally go into the club, walk up to the bar, and have a drink with the mayor or a senator. You can talk to an elected official and get a humanized perspective. I didn’t even know you could do that before. I thought it was very closed off. ”

While this experience best encapsulates Treacy’s 180-degree pivot, it wasn’t his first political production. A month earlier, on April 26, 2025, he’d organized a fundraiser for the Stonewall Democratic Club that drew ~50 attendees. Fulfilling a similar role for this event, Treacy handled multiple aspects of production: securing the venue, leading event strategy, and even DJing. Treacy now serves as the organization’s chair of major events, planning high-impact fundraisers and civic nightlife crossovers. This includes November’s 50th anniversary party, which has a fundraising goal of $50,000.

Culture as Power: Redefining Political Engagement

While this unorthodox approach to political activism may seem like nothing more than superficial window dressing, Treacy believes in its effectiveness because it stands in stark contrast to conventional political mixers with their awkward small talk and rigid hierarchies. While policy messaging and fundraising goals have their place, he focuses on creating emotional experiences, applying nightlife elements like engaging lighting and music to set the mood and facilitate authentic connections.

To Treacy, that culture is the missing piece of the puzzle that’s kept many from engaging in one of society’s most critical discourses.

“Culture is a form of power,” he insists, saying that his aim is to “build a blueprint for how music and nightlife can be used not just to entertain but to move people, shift elections, and build real civic capital.”

He doesn’t see cultural experiences as supplementary to political work, but fundamental. And for a generation that’s increasingly alienated from traditional political structures, it offers an entry point that feels authentic rather than obligatory or performative.

The litmus test of success? When attendees walk away from events saying, “That didn’t feel like politics — it felt like purpose.”

The Ultimate Goal: Movements That Become Mandates

Looking forward, Treacy hopes to scale his approach to the national arena, producing events for potential presidential candidates like AOC.

This isn’t to stroke his ego; it’s to maximize impact. After years of creating experiences for profit, Treacy now pushes for greater visibility so that movements can scale faster, using events, press, and influence to make causes unavoidable.

“That’s my mission,” he emphasizes, “to build moments that become mandates.”

While he’s working toward the gubernatorial and presidential levels, Treacy is still getting involved locally. In early 2025, he was elected to serve a two-year term as an outreach officer for the Del Rey Neighborhood Council, where he works to “bring neighbors together, highlight community concerns, and advocate for local solutions.” Even in this role, his mission remains largely the same: to “lead cultural diplomacy efforts,” tying his local efforts back to the ever-present drive to leverage culture for societal change.

His new life as a cultural strategist sounds like a far cry from his origins as one of Hollywood’s go-to party hosts, but Connor Treacy sees it as more of a refinement of his original mission.

Granted, if you’d asked him whether he’d consider returning to the party scene while he was managing for Universal Music Group and working with artists like Halsey and Dua Lipa, chances are he would have told you that stage of his life was over. But in the end, he’s come full circle and embraced the very talent that launched his initial fame. He’s once again producing nightlife experiences where people are empowered to connect meaningfully.

The only difference now is his purpose: not just entertainment… but empowerment.