About Us

Are you ready to reach a new audience, but don’t know how to get headlining artists within your budget to say yes? We do. Already have your talent booked but need a professional P.A. system, stage and crew? We do that, too.

​Sonic Pie Productions, a concert and festival production and curation company, based in Durham, North Carolina was founded in 2013 by Tess Mangum Ocaña. Sonic Pie Productions is your turn-key source for the best bookings, consulting, P.A. rental, promotional services, sound engineers and event logistics navigation.
Special rates are available for non-profit organizations.

Tess is a seventh-generation North Carolinian. Though she grew up in a musical family (her grandmother, Kate Mangum, taught Randy Travis how to play guitar and great-uncle Homer Briarhopper was fortunate to call Doc Watson a fan), she always felt her role in the family business was behind the scenes.

Live music builds community and commerce.

She holds a B.A. in Public Relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Limerick, Ireland. She served as Concerts Director & Facility Rental Coordinator of The ArtsCenter in Carrboro, a non-profit performing arts center, from 2002-2012 and developed the critically-acclaimed American Roots Series, which helped launch the careers of the Avett Brothers and Carolina Chocolate Drops, as well as spotlight American music legends such as Dr. John and Mavis Staples. Tess is a 2012 Indy Arts award winner.