Best sneaky event producers: Unseen Heroes

With a vision and Pinterest board, the people behind Unseen Heroes create impeccably designed, lively community-driven events. And those events are remarkably consistently well-attended.

It started with the beloved, award-winning Good: Street Food + Design Market on Del Paso Boulevard in 2012. Then, the Heroes were approached to organize something similar in Oak Park with a foodie focus. And so they launched Gather, a monthly block party, which drew big crowds—nearly 1,500 in August—from all over Sacramento this summer. Around the same time, the production company was also tapped to ramp up the Crocker Art Museum’s monthly Art Mix parties, and now those too have an extra magic touch.

The Heroes here are Roshaun and Maritza Davis, a young married couple living in Oak Park. They met in a public-relations class at Sacramento State University and immediately started a business relationship—Maritza wanted some practice marketing in the entertainment world, and Roshaun was in a band.

That was in 2006. The couple got approached by other musicians and artists seeking portfolio help, and soon Unseen Heroes was born. They offered public relations, marketing, design and event-production services to artists, small businesses, entrepreneurs and eventually bigger corporations. They narrowed down the focus, calling Unseen Heroes a boutique lifestyle events agency. They had hands in Hot Italian’s launch, the Bicycle Film Festival, Dine Downtown and more—not that anyone really knew.

“We were unseen heroes,” Roshaun says. “We just stayed behind the scenes.”

Things changed quickly with the success of Good. Recognition—and clients—poured in. That wasn’t the intention, though. Awards were never on the mind.

“We just wanted to get creative and prove a point—that people don’t need to go to San Francisco or leave the area to see good design,” Roshaun says.

The same could be said for food artisans or an interactive party. It all comes down to civic pride and bolstering the local creative community. Roshaun and Maritza both hail from Sacramento, love the city and are actively creating new events to show it off— an insider’s neighborhood-tour program launching this month, for example. And Roshaun promises more excitement—ideas abound, and Unseen Heroes is growing.

“There are some ideas where it’s like, ’You’re crazy girl, it’s never gonna happen,’” he says. “But they don’t stray far from where they are now.” www.unseen-heroes.com. E