01 Where it all began — the lead gnome at the kindergarten New Year’s Eve party.
About
San Francisco based queer immigrant, originally from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. I came up through hospitality, private events, high-end retail, then catering, and made my way into queer underground nightlife. Working on Site Ops, lights, managing volunteers at some of the city’s coolest venues — for some of the fastest-growing parties in the industry, with creative and talented people.
By day, I analyze numbers. By night, I count lights. Both jobs are about reading the room — nightlife just has better lighting.
In numbers — per event
Projects in this portfolio8
Attendees50–1,750 per event
Volunteers35 per event
People directly managed17+ per event
Venues
The San Francisco Mint · Yerba Buena Center for the Arts · The Foundry SF · One Post Plaza · Databricks Inc. · Consulate General of Ireland & the Consul General’s Residence · Newhall Nest Event Space · and many more.
Clients, Partners & Collaborators
B2B — Databricks Inc. · Consulate General of Ireland · Highnote · GBU · Boof Events · Domaine Carneros
B2C — Coach
B2B2C — Kate Spade · Boss · Local Kitchen
Community & local — Cinderella Bakery & Cafe · Bi-Rite · Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) · florists · local artists · farmers · and more
What I can doBy area
1 Site Operations & Volunteer Management
Load-in/load-out, spatial build, PAR lights & battery-powered ambiance lighting (deployment, zoning, live monitoring), indoor & outdoor fog machines, projectors, POS systems, DIY fixes on the fly, volunteer coordination, last-minute off-site gear runs.
Volunteer Management: I coordinate the crews who handle the gear — I’m the one making sure the right people and gear land in the right zone. Within a few minutes of conversation I can read a person and assign them the tasks and zone where they’ll actually shine.
For volunteer shifts, I like using a color-coded method on iMessage — light blue for morning, yellow for afternoon, orange for late afternoon — for quick access and management.
02 Credits: Eldor. Volunteer Coordination — Color Coded. Names blurred for privacy reasons.
The Green Room move
At one of the first events where I led a big group of volunteers, I noticed some of the regulars — including a few with personal friendships with the producer — circling the building instead of doing their assigned tasks. Meanwhile, I had a short window to load out a room full of heavy sofas and turn it into the Green Room.
What did I do? I put two young first-time volunteers in charge of that zone, leading the regulars. I checked in on progress as needed; the new leads reported back to me. The room was done earlier than expected.
Sometimes the newest people in the room are the ones who’ll actually run it.
One of my takeaways: client confidentiality is the key part of clienteling — client details and personal information stay strictly private, never shared outside the store, and never written down on paper; if they ever are, the paper gets destroyed immediately.
Top Sales Associate through the holiday months — bringing experiences to clients and VIPs, driving foot traffic for holidays and new collection releases. One of the Top 3 Sales Associates in the store district, hitting every KPI category.
Coach of the Month:
Eldor K. is SFC's Coachie of the Month!
How they did it:
Whether a shared interest in travel, a styling detail, or the confident delivery of product knowledge, Eldor found meaningful ways to connect with their clients. They encouraged clients to try on and see how their options fit their style and offered charms/matching wallets as add ons! Eldor was patient when listening to client concerns and gave alternatives when the first option wasn't available or the right fit.
Team SFC celebrates Eldor's contribution and growth to LY!
This was my way in — my first step into queer nightlife, before the bigger projects that came after. I started on the floor, and when the Floor Manager stepped out for an hour, I was the only person out there holding it down. Next event, the producer moved me to door.
Door was a different speed than high-end retail. Instead of hours with one client, it was everyone, all at once, for a few hours straight. Overwhelming at first. Also so much fun.
Door & check-in — cash and tap-to-pay on Square, wristbands, flow.
Floor support — setup, strike, solo floor coverage, drug safety & harm reduction info.
Visitor support — answering questions, lost & found, and sexual assault & harassment concerns — discreetly communicated directly to the right team.
And the list itself stayed off the record: names checked at the door were never photographed, stored, or repeated — attendee information was handled need-to-know at the door and not retained after the night.
02Boof
Boof — Foundry
Type: Underground Queer Techno Rave
📍 The Foundry SF
Role: Volunteer — Lighting
03 Event flyer — Boof at The Foundry SF
My first time working PAR lights. A few questions, an “I can do it anyway” mindset, and I had them activated and distributed for the dark room — setting the ambiance for the space.
I gave Ben a verbal tour of where everything landed, then left Matt written instructions for strike so nothing got lost after.
PAR activation & distribution — dark room lighting and ambiance.
Handover — verbal tour + written strike notes on locations.
Credits — Producer Matt G. @boof.boy · Lead Design & Production Ben @hellbent.sf
03Pride — Flagship
Boof Pride
Type: Underground Queer Techno Rave
📍 The San Francisco Mint · 1,750 attendees · 35 volunteers total
Role: Volunteer Lead & Site Ops
04 Event flyer — Boof Pride
The big one. I was the point person for volunteers before doors even opened, and the person checking in on teams while the party was running.
Pre-event — volunteer comms, greetings, task assignments & briefings for volunteers and leads, loading dock → room load-in, spatial build & setup, PAR activation, last-minute gear runs offsite.
Assisted Ben @hellbent.sf on building a separate prep room for the headliner — Brooke Candy.
05 Brooke Candy — Vogue Portugal cover, referenced for the headliner room
During — coat check & POS setup support, PAR activation in dark areas, including briefing resident DJ Jabril @justanotherbitch on operating lights for the DJ booth.
Post-event — strike lead, gear back into cases & labeled, notes on volunteer performance and loss prevention.
06 From the producer's story after breakdown: 1,750 attendees — a record. Setup: @eldor.gram + 35 volunteers.
Credits — Producer Matt G. @boof.boy
04Deviants
Boof Takeover for Deviants
Type: Underground Queer Techno Rave
📍 The San Francisco Mint
Role: Site Ops & Design Setup Support
07 Event flyer — Deviants / Up Your Alley
Shorter brief, same building, different room. Load-in from the dock and hands-on help with the lead design team on the spatial design — getting the room to feel right before doors.
08 Sunday Deviants × Boof — the Mint ballroom, mid load-in.
Load-in — all gear from loading dock to assigned rooms for setup.
Spatial design assist — working directly with lead design on layout.
Credits — Producer Matt G. @boof.boy
05Folsom — Most recent
Boof × Squish — Folsom
Type: Underground Queer Techno Rave
📍 The San Francisco Mint · 28+ volunteers · 17+ directly managed · 4th Boof in a row · 3rd at the Mint
Role: Site Ops & Volunteer Management
09 Event flyer — Boof × Squish, Folsom
By this one I knew the building. All setup gear went from the loading dock to its zones in about two hours, across three main areas plus coat check — with PAR lighting as my main thread: prep, distribution, briefings, live monitoring, and strike.
10 PAR light allocation by zone — my plan for the night. Upstairs.Same plan, downstairs — The Cage, The Vault, dark rooms, bar.
Dark Rooms
Spatial build & lighting: Eldor + volunteers — black pipe & drape, red PVC framing, PAR deployment. Lead Design Ben @hellbent.sf · 📸 cc: Eldor
12 The room, live — glowing cubes, projection on the curtain.13 Projection mapping the installation — MadMapper, mid-setup.
Courtyard
PAR operations: Eldor + volunteers. Visuals @curtiszaustin · Outdoor PARs @parameter_sf 📸 cc: Eldor
14 The courtyard at night — visuals across the building wall.15 The Mint, washed in red — my PARs on the building.
Coat check setup lead — queue stanchions, POS prep, shelf setup & indexing, with volunteers.
Time on site — on average 3 days working per event cycle (build, show, strike).
“Wake me up at 3:45am and I can still walk you through operating that one ancient elevator.”
Credits — Producer @boof.boy · Lead Design & Production Ben @hellbent.sf · Production Manager Dustin O. @firsthandfabrication · PAR Lights @boof.party @parameter_sf
Talent shout-out
12+ DJs and counting. Most of them play underground techno and house at venues across San Francisco. I shout them out and share their work with my friends and followers — telling people about their music and what they do, building genuine connections along the way.
16 With DJ Tommy Hart, after his set at Young Hearts — Public Works.
After the brand debuted its New York Collection in Fall 2024, it made a huge comeback, creating a viral moment among Gen Z and millennial buyers. Driven by celebrities and street-style moments — most notably Bella Hadid carrying the minimalist Brooklyn bag — the collection achieved massive success by blending nostalgic NYC charm with practical, everyday luxury, like the oversized Empire Carryall. Because of the collection’s commercial success, I organized a little in-store experience to additionally boost KPI metrics. Clients who purchased from the collection were offered a taste of New York.
Goal: Boost KPI metrics.
Result: The store team overachieved KPI and quarterly sales targets. Additionally, during that weekend, clients mentioned having a more positive shopping experience on Medallia.
17 Soft and hard pretzels — served in individual labeled cups.Caramel apples set next to the New York bag charms.NYC-themed personalized hangtags as an add-on for their purchase.
Holiday Spark
ROI: 217%
During the holidays, purchases came with 100% organic orange juice, a customized hang tag, a freshly baked croissant from a local bakery, and refreshments while you shopped.
18 Holiday gift bags, ready to go.Orange juice and the details tray.Refreshments while you shopped.
3 Customization & Craft
Leather customization (bag hangtags, belts, wallets) · shoe & hat customization · leather cleaning & conditioning · hot stamp monogramming
19 Bag hangtags, customized by hand — a name like BONA, a cat, butterflies, a plane, a 19, and a FAZI tag with a cherry charm, on the bag. Whatever the client imagined, stamped.
20 The die wall — Emojis, Zodiac, NYC Motifs, Food, Animals.Eldor customizing hangtag at the hot stamp machine.
On a visit to the brand's Fifth Avenue flagship in New York, I came across their customized sneakers and got inspired. Back at our San Francisco store, I started customizing sneakers myself — including my own.
21 Bear charm, rainbow — customized in-store.SF letters, apple and dinosaur pins.The black pair — cherries, a crystal bow, a bear, a rainbow.Mine — flower charms and an ELDOR hangtag, obviously.
Spice Storage Reimagined
DIY, home edition: a retail product display, retired from the sales floor and reborn as tiered spice storage. The jars got repurposed too — flower-lid caps, each one labeled with P-Touch. Order restored.
Clients weren't the only people I built experiences for. I organized the store team's offsites and get-togethers — the employee-engagement side of retail that never shows up on a sales report. A team that actually likes each other sells like it. Morale is a KPI too; it just doesn't live in a spreadsheet.
The Team Out: After Dark Thursdays
📍 Exploratorium
23 Museum night — the whole team out.Trying the Morse code trainer.The blue-lit exhibit.
Picnic at Dolores
📍 Mission Dolores Park
🦄🐸😎🌸🤓👽🎭👑🧸
24 Picnic at Dolores — faces anonymized by popular demand. (The charcuterie board from this spread lives in Chapter 3.)
Chapter 3
Food & Beverage
Catering, Wine Tasting Experiences and the kitchen experiments.
08Gala
Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) — 25th Anniversary Celebration
📍 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Role: Gala Team Lead — Catering
When needed, I communicated directly with clients on spatial setup and additional requests, and briefed the team on how to hand out the bite-size appetizers — sharing each bite’s name and a highlight or two with guests as we served.
The evening brought together immigrant rights advocates, pro bono attorneys, notable political figures, journalists, and community members.
25 25 years of CGRS — the room, buffet in the foreground.
26 Under the heat lamps — sliders, crab cakes, stuffed mushrooms.The butterfly dessert table — petits fours on a mirror.
Wine Experiences
Being updated.
Eldor in the kitchen
27 Melon & prosciutto hand bites.Shrimp with avocado salsa — Thomas Keller's recipe, poached in court bouillon.
28 Charcuterie board for the picnic — cheeses, cured meats, and everything that goes with them.
29 Gift-ready — cookies, boxed and ribboned.30 Salted caramel brownies.
31 Semifreddo cappuccino & cinnamon-sugar donut — from my kitchen to the plate.
Private Events
Still updating (:
Education & background
Bangor University — International Hospitality & Tourism ManagementVice President, Students’ Union — organized events supporting 1,000+ students
Florida International University — Hospitality & Tourism ManagementGlobal Coordinator
Food Safety Manager Certification — National Restaurant Association
Day jobs along the way: Business Analyst in retail. Previously Sales Associate at Coach. Also a certified Professional Scrum Master II with Google UX/UI coursework — handy, but the creative and operational work is the point here.
