So why is he leaving?
"For personal reasons," Akins said. "You know, I want to go back to school and get my life going again."
The 28-year-old Akins and his girlfriend, community activist Dana Greenwald, are moving to Portland this weekend, sad to be leaving a scene they helped build.
"I'll miss people here for sure," Akins said. "It's hard to walk away from everything you've helped create."
Akins, who moved to the Valley in 2004, became an instrumental part of the early Las Vegas First Friday scene after joining up with fellow promoter and electronic-music fan Cameron Grant. They formed Vegas Artists LLC, a collective consisting of Akins and his promotional powers, Grant and his accessibility to sound equipment and many others, to put together parties in the desert for the city's underground electronic-music scene.
"I met Grant on Eternal Beats, a local electronic-music message board, and he said he wanted to do desert parties," Akins said. "From there we started to put together something at First Friday that was like a street party with electronic music at a crack house on Casino Center Boulevard. That was the first Blank Canvas."
From there, Akins and Grant expanded their street party into a full-blown First Friday afterparty called Spaced Invaders in September 2004.
Held in a small strip mall consisting of a gay bar, Snicks Place, and the Aloha Laundromat off of Third Street and Imperial Avenue, Spaced Invaders appealed to both the underground techno and the art-rock scenes.
"It was fucking great," Akins said. "We'd have hipsters, queens, gay rodeo cowboys, ravers. It blew me away."
Spaced Invaders was a hit until differences—over broken gear and finances—severed Akins' relationship with Grant, forcing Akins to start over.
"We split up, then in January I started LV Indy Art," Akins said.
LV Indy Art, which would eventually become to Blank Canvas LV, amplified the Spaced Invaders concept by organizing people from outside of the electronic-music community to become involved in events combining popular and unpopular bands with drum-and-bass, jungle, psy-trance, experimental and other music genres.
"We wanted to create something for everyone of all genres," Akins said. "We figured, ‘Why the hell should we just stick to electronic music, why not get other people involved with our stuff and have one big, crazy party?'"
Akins and Blank Canvas' most popular events, like Art Park After Dark, held at the Art Park off of Boulder Highway in July 2005, and his monthly drum-and-bass night at the Bunkhouse, eventually gained Akins a position as booking manager at the Bunkhouse, a popular bar for the local music scene. He resigned a month ago to move to Portland.
But beyond being one of Las Vegas' most popular promoters and a savior of a dying electronic-music scene, the death of his father from cancer last summer put Akins into what he called a "monotonous cycle of being."
"My dad died, and I was just kind of living, I didn't know what to do, so I kept throwing parties and promoting shows. Then one day last month I woke up, [Greenwald] and I just kind of decided that we needed a change, so we decided to move to Portland. We had some friend move up there, and I wanted to get back into school, so we kinda decided to pick up and go."
But once Akins and Greenwald leave for Portland, some wonder what will happen to the scene Akins helped save.
"[Akins'] work will continue be seen even after he's gone," said Matt Pentycoft, a local DJ who goes by the name James Demon. "[Akins] revived the scene in a good way, pushing it into a whole new way of thinking. He helped push it into a direction it needed to go."
Pentycoft, who has been involved in the local electronic-music scene for years, said that had it not been for Akins, he does not know if the scene would be what it is today.
"The electronic scene was really bumping here in '99 and 2000. He worked hard pushing Vegas' electronic music scene into new directions, making it become more inclusive to other genres. [Akins] will be severely missed."
"Akins was always thinking far ahead of someone else regarding music and promotion," said his partner, longtime DJ Edgar Reyes. "We're going to lose a lot, his charisma and his attitude, but his work and the scene will continue."
Akins' decision to move comes shortly after the departure of popular electronic-psychedelic band—and former Akins client—Flaspar, also to Portland.
Flaspar left Vegas in June because of frustration over this city's seeming apathy toward culture beyond the party environment.
But Akins' decision to move was not fueled by dissatisfaction with the city's music and art scene. Akins does admit, however, that recent decisions in policy regarding First Friday did not necessarily give him a reason to stay, either.
"The war between the street artists and the traditional gallery artists is going to hurt the art scene in the city," Akins said. "Each of them wants to dominate the other and take over, but they need to find a way to work together instead of bitching and then bringing Metro out with cops in riot gear on horses to deter people from having fun."
Akins couldn't leave without a few shout-outs to people who helped him in his two years here. "People like Jason Sturtzman of Indycrush, Johnny Vibe and Edgar Reyes of Soul Kitchen have really motivated me," Akins said. "It's people like them who manage to keep this city going when it seems like everything is going to crash and burn."