12 years of Sandbox: Nacelle’s recipe for a world-class festival on home turf

Long before Sandbox Festival became a regional benchmark, Tito El Khachab was hosting events simply to have somewhere to play. What began as a DIY workaround has since evolved into one of the region’s most influential electronic music festivals, shaping the region’s scene through a commitment to sound, platforming small artists and the joy of the scene rather than spectacle.

Over the past decade, Sandbox has built a reputation as a pioneer in electronic music across Egypt and the wider region. Its approach is rooted in detail: finely tuned sound systems, environments designed around how music is actually experienced, and lineups that consistently balance international acts with local and regional talent. That instinct for curation has also meant spotting artists early, bringing names like Peggy Gou to its stages before their meteoric rise, long before the industry caught up. It’s where your favourite DJ goes to see their favourite DJ, you know?

We sat down with El Khachab ahead of this years event happening in El Gouna from May 7-9, to talk about how the balance between rigour and release feels intentional. In a landscape increasingly driven by algorithms and optics, Sandbox has held its ground as a space that prioritises sound first, proving that if the music is right, everything else tends to follow.

ZK: Let’s start from the beginning. You started hosting events in Montreal. When did you decide to take matters into your own hands and throw these events?

TK: I was in computers. I was a computer chip engineer. I’ve always been passionate about music. I started DJing maybe when I was 21 or 22. A lot of these events were related not specifically to the event, but just for us to play music and host people. Sometimes we found cool spaces that we liked, so we went and lived in them, even though they were much more expensive, just so we could throw events and have a space to collaborate and do artistic stuff. But I was always full-time in computers, in the computer world. Then there was a brief part where I did the back-end systems for a music distributor in Montreal. We were distributing pretty much all of the independent titles of Canada that were coming in. That was really fun. And then when I came to Egypt, I started hosting events more regularly.

ZK: Can you tell me about some of the crazier ideas you’ve pulled off?

TK: We brought grass into a third-floor loft because the neighbours were upset with the evening events, but we wanted to have a daytime event. If you’re going to host a day event when the weather is nice outside, you bring the weather to the apartment. So we rolled out some grass. The Fairmont suggested we come and host an event on the roof, and I put actual real grass all over the roof, on the terrace upstairs at the Fairmont Hotel.

ZK: Did the grass thing become a staple for the events you were throwing?

TK: No, it was only three times. We’ve done it twice professionally and once just in my own home. Twice professionally in Cairo, and one of them was on the roof of the Fairmont. I mean, it’s just more like a lot of the crazy ideas, right?

ZK: How did you transition from DJing to running your events company Nacelle?

TK: Basically, what happened when I moved here was that I just wanted to DJ. I took these places to play music, and it really was all about just playing my music and having fun, not specifically “I want to get into events” or anything like that. We never started thinking that this is about events. We thought about it like we’re doing events just to have a place to play. And then as things got bigger and I started getting other people to play, now we’re obviously a full-fledged events company. We make concepts, we do corporate, we do concerts, we do festivals, we do everything.

ZK: As a DJ and a promoter, do you find it difficult to balance both roles?

TK: Sadly, the difficulty kind of won. I can still DJ and have a good time, and everyone will have a good time too. But I don’t DJ anymore. Maybe once, twice, three times a year. I’m coming back to that lately. So the balance—there is no balance. It would be nice. Lately, I’ve been starting to reconnect to that side, and I think it is time to go back. But yeah, it is very hard to balance because listening for new music, digging for new music, being in that mind space where you’re just open—it’s a lot. It’s hard when you’re running a schedule, and people can access your brain anywhere with a phone call or any crisis.

ZK: I know you were one of the first to give young DJs a platform. Is that something you still carry on with the curation of lineups?

TK: We carry it on. My team that does a lot of the curation—I’m still very involved with them, but this is their core belief anyway. That’s what they believe in. So I’d say they’re carrying that on. What was very interesting was that in the electronic music scene, there was a period where it was even difficult, because we rarely do this anyway, but sometimes people are looking for more commercial events, which is not what we do. But the scene had gotten to a point where there aren’t even many people playing straight-up DJ who just know how to play hits. They almost disappeared. Everyone got inspired to have a very unique niche voice. You have people who want to play minimal and techno, and I don’t know what. Normally, it’s the opposite. Normally, it’s hard to find someone who wants to go that deep. But there was this time between ’14 and ’19 where there was a lot of diversity, and a lot of people came up playing on our decks. We still do that. It’s still very important. At Sandbox, we’re 50% local and regional, and we have micro stages that just give the opportunity for anyone to come and express themselves. And on the lineup itself, we do try to branch out as much as we can in different sounds, even though we obviously don’t need to.

ZK: When you were first starting and exploring all these different genres and subgenres, you were throwing events under different names. Was that a strategy to diversify the sound and give each one a home?

TK: I mean, it’s easy to look back and try to make it into a strategy, but at the time it was more like, “I want to do a funk night, so let’s do it.” That’s something dear to my heart, that kind of music I like to play—old funk, new funk, whatever. We had a night called B Side where we were doing that. And we tried a couple of minimal-only nights. So I wouldn’t say necessarily that it was intentional. But what is intentional is that I’m not going out of my way to serve the commercial world in any way. All forms of music are cool, so we always try not to be the extreme version. We’re always trying to be the middle ground where people can pass through. I never looked at it like, “This techno event has people that I want.” I looked at it more like all these people are going out listening to the same 40 songs—these are the people we were trying to pull into the fold, rather than looking at people who are already listening to this music. I always used to say our competition was pop music. Our competition is not someone doing it more minimally than us. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what I want them to do. The more people doing events, the better, because we’re all trying to pull people out of the classic music programming. But again, that sounds too philosophical. At the end of the day, it was like: let’s have some fun, let’s throw an event, let’s make sure the sound is good, let’s make sure everybody feels comfortable, let’s make sure even if you don’t like the music, you’re going to go home having a good time. And I think that allowed people to open up their minds to a lot of different sounds.

ZK: Over the past 12 years of putting on festivals, have you seen the scene change? Have you seen your influence, prioritising proper sound, good DJs, good music, not falling into the flashiness of the festival scene?

TK: I can see how some of the choices we made have affected people and challenged them to do different things. I’ve seen our effect for sure. But I’d say a bigger force that we’ve had to deal with, and everyone’s had to deal with, is technology and social media. That’s not the subject of this article, but the biggest change I’d say we’ve seen over anything would be this uber-importance of profile and social media that’s just dominating everything. It’s just changed the way you have to approach things. It doesn’t destroy it completely, but it definitely changes the game big time.

ZK: In what way?

TK: People are building more of a persona. There’s a lot more focus on image. And it’s also creating this environment where now, because you can look up someone and have an opinion before you come and listen to them, that kind of changes things. Before it was like, “My buddy says he’s a good DJ.” But now social media might say, “No, he’s not that popular. Look at this, look how he played here.” But he could come here and play completely differently. It doesn’t fully show the soul and character of a DJ. You can’t really judge a lineup until you actually attend. Then you’re more than welcome to comment. But beforehand, you know—social media is exposing all of that. It’s changed things a little bit on that perspective.

ZK: I was actually reading something today about how marketing for music has changed, with artists being accused of being industry plants, teams running fake fan accounts to create virality. Do you think this has influenced techno and the DJ scene?

TK: Influenced the scene? For sure. It’s even influenced festivals and how they market themselves. We’re always creating a balance. It’s always a tough decision on our side, marketing anything we do. It’s just changed the way people do things, and it’s tough to keep up with all the different algorithmic changes. But it’s definitely present in electronic music. For example, in 2017 we had gotten Peggy Gou way before she blew up. She attended and played, then the next year, she was everywhere. A year after that, she was huge. In two years, her commercial value tripled. I was like, “Wow, that’s crazy.”

Now these things happen in six months. Even quicker. We contact an agent this year, the numbers come back, and we’re like, “What? When did this happen?” It’s creating this hyper-aggressive kind of rules of success, I guess. But again, there’s no point in complaining about it. There’s a point in critiquing it and being mindful of it and just navigating through it. Because in the end, truth and beauty, you can always find your way.

ZK: The reputation around Sandbox is very much about not selling out, staying authentic, being about the music. I heard you have to partner with real estate brands to make festivals happen in Egypt, which could come with pressure for flash and champagne. How do you resist that?

TK: We’re fighting back on that front. Make no mistake, we are commercial in the sense that we’re bound by the rules of commerce. We’re trying to make a living, make money and make Sandbox grow and all of that. But at the same time, it doesn’t have to be; you just have to be mindful of where you want to go. Because sometimes caving into everyone’s demands could actually sink you more than you think. If you’re suddenly too flashy from the beginning, the wrong people start to come. It becomes a photo op more than anything else.

ZK: Who are you most excited to have at Sandbox this year?

TK: I’m excited for Peach back-to-back with Shanti Celeste. We’ve been trying to make that happen for a couple of years, scheduled as early as September every year, but somehow scheduling never worked out. This year it worked out. I’m excited about Craig Richards. I’m excited about Dixon because this year, Dixon is not going to play on the Playground stage; he’s going to play on a more intimate stage. That’s very interesting. Job Jobse is playing a sunset slot, earlier in the day, which normally never happens. Usually, the bigger names play at night. I’m always excited to see Âme again. I think she’s one of the grooviest DJs I’ve heard. She always gets me going. And there are a few locals I’m really interested in seeing what they do with the sounds they have this year. Very interesting pairings on the local front as well.

ZK: You mentioned Dixon is on a more intimate stage this year. How do you make those decisions?

TK: I like to repeat certain artists. I like to bring people back a lot. Dixon is one of them. Desiree is one of them. Mano Le Tough, Miguel—pretty much comes all the time. The people that we repeat a lot, we always try to find something different. Because in the end, they’ve come back many times, and it would be cool to try something new rather than closing the same stage they’ve closed three times before. Dixon’s been with us in ’16, ’19, ’24, this is his fourth time. So why not try a different stage and make a completely different experience? We try to make people move around, because the stages aren’t really about genres. They’re more about different feelings. Each stage has its own feeling. The energy is just different.

ZK: Do you recognise how incredible your career has been for the region and how much it’s changed the music scene here?

TK: I mean, I get it. But I think there are a lot of things going on, a lot of people doing great things. I can’t take credit for the fact that a lot of people got into this particular music. When you look at the Egyptian and the Arab music scene in general, a lot of the DJs are gravitating towards this kind of niche vibe and their sounds and their productions. It’s very unique. It’s not like everyone’s trying to play the same 30 tracks. So it’s just cool to be here and watch all of that grow. I don’t know how much credit to take for it. It’s about creating a balance, I guess.

ZK: Twelve years of throwing festivals, growing from one day to three days, that’s unheard of in the region. What’s the secret?

TK: Sandbox has stood the test of time. In a way, Sandbox found us as a team. You just have to always have your eye on the prize every year, be very careful about how you’re going to approach it. The secret to success in any event I’ve noticed in the region is: don’t quit. Period. Doesn’t matter how alternative or how not popular your event is, doesn’t matter if only 40 people like this sound, if you don’t stop, you grow. We’re not the only people who grew. The common thread is don’t stop. If you have an event that looks like a failure on the surface, you just have to do it again. You keep going. With Sandbox specifically, there’s a core team that has been working on it for a very long time. We’re all like-minded in terms of what we want to see for the festival, and we’re realistic about our expectations. So we’re able to just keep it going.

ZK: And what would you say makes a good festival, in your opinion?

TK: A festival should be well organised and have a cohesive team, and that presence is felt. You shouldn’t feel like you’re just in the desert with some randoms and speakers. You feel should feel like you’re taken care of. I think that’s something we at Nacelle do really well. Our presence is felt all around, from all the volunteers to venue control to the people looking for anyone who needs help, anyone who’s hurt, anyone who needs attention, any dangerous stuff, hosting the artists, everything. In this region, especially, where there aren’t that many examples of different events, we don’t have that many. Obviously, events are booming, but it’s still nothing compared to many other territories. I think that’s very important. And just to have fun with it. That’s become our way of attending the festival. We want to make it every year because that’s our version of fun. It’s heavy stress, but it’s still a lot of fun. Once it’s done, you reap the rewards. Once the music starts, it’s great.

Get your ticket to this year’s Sandbox Festival here