Joe Paganelli began a live concert music business career at Bill Graham Presents in 1993 as an office assistant, where he grew and learned from the nation’s most successful concert promoters. By 1998 he launched Fillmore Sessions, a series that discovered pre-eminent Bay Area fledgling acts Third Eye Blind and Train, before taking on the Fillmore San Francisco’s GM role. Leading a team between 1998-2006 that broke the profit record twice with annual EBIT north of of $1M, Joe left the company prior to the consolidation with Live Nation.

At Sony Pictures In Los Angeles, Joe worked with 120 North American record labelsand music publishers, licensing music and supporting industry-leading music supervisors on great TV shows such as Rescue Me, Boondocks, and Breaking Bad. A studio lay off allowed Joe to go independent as a music supervisor for independent films.

By 2012, Joe joined the sales team at Flavorus, a high-volume festival and event ticketing company. Using the latest in event entry technology and social media marketing tools to provide service to the highest volume festivals such as Electric Daisy Carnival in Vegas, Joe’s partnership with the company sales director achieved 30% annual business development volume two years in a row.

Joe now runs McCaw Hall ($10M in operating and reserve funds) for City of Seattle, served on Seattle Center’s overall programming committees, and books concerts and comedy in addition to managing the business relationship with resident tenants, Pacific NW Ballet and Seattle Opera.

The Bumbershoot RFP process ended in late 2021. Greg Lundgren, Joe Paganelli, and Steven Severin’s plan to renovate the festival and transform the brand into a year-round community engagement vehicle centered around a cohort education program for BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and underserved communities, was selected to carry Bumbershoot into the next generation for the Pacific Northwest.