festivals
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Festival creator Jeff Shuman has resigned from Live Nation, abruptly ending a successful three-year run that saw the 40-year-old launch a half-dozen festival brands, kicking off a race with rival promoter (and Shuman’s former partner) Goldenvoice to conquer the red-hot post-pandemic mini-festival market.
During his relatively brief run at Live Nation, Shuman built the company’s nostalgia-heavy lineup of one-day mini-festivals — events like the nu-metal and hard rock-driven Sick New World festival; the R&B-heavy Lovers and Friends and Fool in Love festivals; and the gangster rap-focused Once Upon a Time in LA.
Those events — part of Live Nations’s highly successful move into mini-festivals at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic — generated tens of millions of dollars in sales for Live Nation. Shuman briefly became the most successful concert promoter at the company, often besting the AEG-owned Goldenvoice on its own Los Angeles turf.
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(Neither Live Nation nor Shuman returned messages seeking comment for this story.)
But Shuman often clashed with company officials, and in recent months faced several costly cancellations including the shutdown of the Lovers and Friends festival in May in Las Vegas due to dangerously high winds. The costs of the cancellation, coupled with weaker-than-expected ticket sales for Fool in Love and the Latin-focused Bésame Mucho, which is set to take place in December at Dodger Stadium, ultimately led to Shuman’s exit.
“He was a complicated guy,” said one Live Nation executive who didn’t want to speak on the record. “He is extremely private and largely a ghost that you never see or hear from until he hucks a grenade in the room. He’s not afraid to pick a fight with anyone and didn’t have many allies at the end.”
Shuman would book dozens, sometimes hundreds, of artists for one of his genre-specific mini-festivals and work with artists like Usher or System of a Down to curate lineups that were heavy on nostalgia. The inaugural When We Were Young Festival in 2022, headlined by My Chemical Romance and Paramore, focused on late 2000s emo, punk and alternative, with 68 bands performing for more than 60,000 fans in a single day. That single-day event, initially scheduled for Oct. 22, 2022, was then repeated on Oct. 23, 2022, and then again on Oct. 29, 2022.
With tickets priced between $225 and $325, When We Were Young grossed more than $50 million in ticket sales over three days, far outperforming expectations. But the festival business is highly susceptible to the risk of severe weather, and a few hours of dangerous wind, rain or heat can cause an event’s cancellation. Those cancellations can trigger customer refunds, artist kill fees and costly lawsuits that quickly eat away at profits, even if those losses are partially covered by event cancellation insurance.
Since joining Live Nation, Shuman has faced several weather cancellations, including the costly cancellation of the 2024 edition of the Lover and Friends festival.
Shuman’s events have also seen sales slow as ticket prices rise — the 2024 edition of the When We Were Young Festival, headlined by My Chemical Romance, sold out the first day, Oct. 19, but still has plenty of tickets available for the Oct. 20 edition. GA ticket prices for this year’s festival start at $336 plus fees, with GA+ tickets priced at $521 + fees and VIP tickets selling for $618. That’s up from 2023 when tickets were priced at GA $249.99 plus fees, GA+ for $419.99 and VIP tickets for $519.99.
Where Shuman goes next is unclear, but he likely won’t return to Goldenvoice, where he worked from 2015 to 2020 after Live Nation purchased the Observatory in Santa Ana, Calif., which he booked for several years. Shuman’s exit from Goldenvoice reportedly followed a series of financial disagreements that left the two sides on bad terms, kicking off a rivalry between them when he headed to Live Nation.
“The fact that he’s quit both AEG and Live Nation means he doesn’t have a ton of options,” said one source who has worked for both companies. “There are other companies that create festivals, but Jeff’s festivals each had $8 to $12 million dollar budgets and he’s going to have a hard time finding someone else that can write that kind of check.”
American jam band Goose is launching its own destination festival, Viva El Gonzo, taking place May 8-10, 2025, in San José del Cabo, Mexico. Presented by 100x Hospitality, the destination festival promises “an immersive discovery journey where attendees can choose their own adventure” with an “all-in-one ticket purchase [that] includes festival access as well as customizable lodging, wellness offerings, beach access and more in Cabo’s tropical desert oasis,” according to a statement from the band.
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Anchored by three consecutive nights of performances by Goose, the festival will feature sets from The War on Drugs, Tycho, Dawes, LA LOM, LP GIOBBI and more. Goose, known for its genre-blending sound and exploratory live performances, will deliver two sets each night, setting the stage for a weekend full of unforgettable musical discovery.
Travel packages for Viva El Gonzo go on sale Wednesday, Oct. 9, at 1 p.m. ET via VivaElGonzo.com, with a presale starting Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 1 p.m. ET for fans who sign up in advance. More than a dozen hotel choices will be available, from intimate boutique stays to luxurious all-inclusive resorts. A limited number of “music only” tickets will be available for those who want to attend the festival and take care of their own lodging and transportation.
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“We’re stoked to be headlining Viva El Gonzo in such a beautiful spot like San José del Cabo,” says Rick Mitarotonda of Goose. “This festival is going to be something special — a chance for us and our fans to dive into the music, the vibe and the incredible surroundings. We’ve got some wild stuff planned, and we’re really looking forward to sharing this adventure with everyone who takes the ride with us.”
“Viva El Gonzo is the first event of its kind in Cabo, offering a multifaceted experience where music, art, and culture intertwine. The heart of the festival is El Ganzo Oasis, where Goose will perform amidst lush tropical growth, open fields, and elaborate installations,” according to a release from the band. “The venue, just steps from the Sea of Cortez, will host multiple stages, pop-up experiences, wellness events, and an eclectic marketplace of local vendors and cuisine, all designed to create a sensory-rich environment that reflects the festival’s ‘choose your own adventure’ ethos.”
Each night, fans can take a short walk from the El Gonzo Oasis leads to Crania, a beachside club that transforms into “a post-apocalyptic neon world of art and music,” the band explains, noting “festival-goers can explore immersive installations and dance to rhythmic music that channels the vibrant energy of the West Coast, creating a unique late-night experience.”
Visit VivaElGonzo.com to learn more.
Viva El Gonzo
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As the 2024 festival season closes, the 2025 season is already showing signs of life, with Ultra Music Festival announcing the phase one lineup for its March event in Miami. The bill includes a flurry of Ultra regulars including Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, Afrojck, Tiësto, Martin Garrix and Hardwell, along with pairings like the […]
Fans were hopeful that Maren Morris and Hozier might link up at this year’s All Things Go festival in Columbia, Md., where both artists were featured on the lineup.
And during the “My Church” musician’s set Sunday (Sept. 29), the pair gave concertgoers exactly what they wanted when the Irish singer-songwriter emerged on stage with her without much fanfare, making fans at the Merriweather Post Pavillion grounds shriek with excitement and surprise. As fans sang along, Hozier and Morris traded harmonies on their 2019 duet “The Bones,” which peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 2020.
“When the bones are good, the rest don’t matter/ Yeah, the paint could peel, the glass could shatter/ Let it rain, ’cause you and I remain the same,” they sang, exchanging a sweet hug before the “Take Me to Church” artist stepped offstage.
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A couple hours later, Hozier took the main stage to close out the entire festival with his headlining set, during which he gave Morris a shout-out. “Maren is such a wonderful person and just a uniquely talented artist as well,” he told the cheering crowd, calling “The Bones” a “stunning” song. “That was a lot of fun, thanks for anybody who was there at that set.”
During his performance, Hozier also thanked the crowd for helping him nab his first U.S. No. 1 this spring by propelling “Too Sweet” to the top of the Hot 100 and called for acceptance and world peace — encouraging fans to reach out to their representatives to support a ceasefire in Gaza — in a passionate minutes-long speech to the crowd. The performance closed out two days packed with live music, featuring Laufey and the Kennedy Center Orchestra, Reneé Rapp, Conan Gray, Janelle Monáe, Bleachers and more.
One person whose absence was felt heavily by the crowds at both the New York City and Maryland installments of the festival was Chappell Roan, who dropped out of All Things Go last minute to focus on her mental health. Muna saved the day by going on in her place Sunday — in addition to covering “Good Luck, Babe!” at both days of the festival — while a cohort of drag performers led a The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess dance party in lieu of Roan’s set in New York Saturday (Sept. 28).
Watch a clip of Morris and Hozier singing “The Bones” at All Things Go below.
LISA got on the floor to premiere a song called “Moonlit Floor” at Global Citizen Festival 2024 in New York City’s Central Park on Saturday night (Sept. 28). The BLACKPINK singer debuted her latest solo track ahead of its official release, set for Oct. 3, and clips from Global Citizen Fest’s livestream soon popped up […]
After a years-long hiatus, FORM Arcosanti is returning to Arizona on Oct. 4-6, with the festival today (Sept. 26) announcing that Beck is joining the lineup as a Friday night headliner. Esteemed duo Ho99o9 has also been added to the Friday night bill.
Happening at the artist community of Arcosanti, two hours from Phoenix, the weekend’s lineup also includes heavy hitters like Kim Gordon, Thundercat, Skrillex, Floating Points, James Blake, Empress Of, Bonobo, Kevin Morby and many others. See set times for the weekend below.
Programming highlights include Friday’s late night shows, which will feature a four-hour b2b set from Four Tet and Floating Points from 10-2 a.m. On Saturday, Jamie xx will close out the dancefloor from 12-2a.m., and on Sunday, James Blake will give a sunset hour performance that will be immediately followed by a performance from Thundercat. Later that night, Skrillex will perform from 11-2 a.m.
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“In such a crowded festival landscape it’s a privilege to do a show with so much support from the artists themselves,” Zach Tetreault, who founded the festival with his band Hundred Waters in 2014, tells Billboard. “At only 2,500 capacity we don’t have the budget of other festivals, but we do have the heart. That’s clearly resonating, which is so inspiring. This year’s program has some of my favorite artists across genres from earth-shattering poets Aja Monet and Mustafa; to the most powerful living songwriters like Jessica Pratt, Angel Olsen and Sir Chloe; to my favorite DJs on the planet, Four Tet, Skrillex and Jamie xx. I feel like FORM attendees will take an emotional journey each day that ends in the best party ever each night.”
Along with the music, FORM will host daytime cultural programming that includes a discussion on global spiritual spaces and intentional communities, a talk on stopping state violence and protecting the freedom of reproductive decision making, a talk on decarbonizing the music industry, a discussion on the mythology of the afterlife, along with pool parties, nightly stargazing, a saxophone meditation session, a listening room presented by Discogs, an installation by land artist Jim Denevan and more.
“FORM celebrates those shaping the world we want to live in, despite the challenges,” cultural program curators Molly Hawkins and Kim Swift tell Billboard. “Through performance, discussion, social spaces, artworks, activities and partnerships, we explore different perspectives on how individual choices and creative acts can have positive and lasting impact on our world.”
FORM Arcosanti
Courtesy of FORM Arcosanti
FORM Arcosanti
Courtesy of FORM Arcosanti
FORM Arcosanti
Courtesy of FORM Arcosanti
Two independent music festivals that had hoped to generate approximately $70,000 in revenue by quietly scalping their VIP tickets through the since-shuttered ticketing company Lyte now each face more than $300,000 in losses, court records show.
The festivals are represented in two lawsuits — one filed by organizers of Chicago’s North Coast Music Festival in New York court and the other, Ohio’s Lost Lands Festival in Los Angeles court. The suits provide the first insights into the collapse of Lyte, which suddenly ceased operating earlier this month.
The sudden closure of the company, without any warning to its hundreds of clients, revealed that Lyte CEO Ant Taylor, a Princeton graduate and former media executive, had quietly shifted the business into large-scale ticket scalping in recent years. Lyte was marketed to the public as a fan-to-fan ticket exchange, but documents from recent lawsuits show that Lyte’s main source of revenue came from working directly with promoters to scalp hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of VIP tickets for their events to Lyte, which would then resell those tickets at large markups, splitting the upside between the promoter and itself.
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According to one court document, of the 3,064 tickets listed on Lyte for the North Coast Music Festival in Chicago (Aug. 30-Sept. 1) only 89 tickets came from fan listings. Lyte would use those fan listings to drive traffic to an additional 2,975 tickets posted directly on Lyte by the event’s promoters, with a collective face value of approximately $287,750.
Lyte was able to scalp those tickets on its own marketplace and generate $426,912 in revenue — a price lift of nearly 48%, or approximately $139,162 total — which it would then split 50-50 with the promoters. North Coast Music Festival’s cut of the action was to be $69,581, which represents a 24% increase in revenue over their original allocation.
But none of the above mentioned revenue was paid to the dance-centric NCMF festival and the festival was also never paid back for the $287,750 in revenue from tickets it listed on Lyte.
The team behind Lost Lands Music Festival, which takes place each September in Legend Valley, Ohio says its owed $330,000 for the tickets it sold on Lyte, plus the upside it generated from the markups. According to the Lost Land’s lawsuit (filed under its corporate name of APEX Management), Lyte paid APEX a $100,000 advanced fee for using the ticketing platform, which APEX repaid by early September.
Much of Lost Land’s lawsuit is heavily redacted, although the suit does provide some clues about the timeline surrounding Lyte’s collapse.
According to a court filing, APEX’s consultant for Lost Lands, concert giant AEG Presents, had learned that Taylor had resigned as Lyte’s CEO on Sept. 12, and “that Lyte had ceased virtually all of its business operations and laid off virtually all of its employees,” attorney Eric Levinrad writes in a recent court filing.
The lawsuits states that two days later, officials with AEG made contact with Lyte’s CFO Lisa Bashi and learned “she could not commit to the timing of any payment or even that there would be a payment,” for money owed to Lost Lands. “Ms. Bashi further stated that this was an unfortunate scenario, and that defendant was hiring an outside company to help consult on how to wind down operations (Id.), making it clear that Defendant had become insolvent.”
On Sept. 18, an LA Superior Court judge overseeing the Lost Lands case approved the festival organizers’ request for a writ of attachment, allowing organizers to seize Lyte’s property before a judgment is entered, ensuring that Lyte’s assets are available to pay Lost Lands the $330,000 it is owed.
The failed payments come with significant risk for festivals, managing director of APEX Event Management Brett Abel said in a declaration filed in LA court, writing, “APEX will have to urgently find alternative sources of revenue to pay the vendors and artists who will be working at the festival, to make up for its planned share of the secondary market ticket sales,” increasing the risk that APEX would “suffer a loss from the festival rather than break even or to make some profit.”
Tens of thousands of Brazilians gathered at Rio de Janeiro’s mega-festival Rock in Rio on Friday (Sept. 20), with many staking out spots of artificial grass all day to hear the headliner, Katy Perry. As her music keyed up, the enormous screens around the stage showed someone else in their bottom corners — a sign language interpreter.
The red-haired woman — with a chunky chain belt and a gem between her eyebrows — snapped her fingers and swayed, then pumped her arms as the beat gathered force.
“It seems like I’m on stage with her, in front of everyone,” the interpreter, Laísa Martins, told the Associated Press afterward. And as Katy Perry belted out her first verse, Martins started signing.
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Rock in Rio is featuring sign language interpreters on its big screens for the first time in its 40-year history. It’s one of Latin America’s biggest festivals, drawing 100,000 people a day over seven days, and Sunday is its last day.
Inside a container backstage, interpreters sign in front of a green screen, with their images appearing above the stage to ensure deaf people across the thronging crowd can follow. Organizers also invite dozens of deaf people and their companions into a VIP area, right by the stage and close enough to speakers to feel the music pulsing through their bodies.
How a 2015 law helped Brazil start championing accessibility
Interpreters have started popping up at festivals and concerts across Brazil in recent years. Their sudden ubiquity stems from Brazil’s ambitious 2015 inclusion law that sought to put the country at the global forefront of accessibility and, among other things, established that people with disabilities have the right to access cultural events while guaranteeing organizers provide means of doing so.
Some interpreters have drawn the spotlight themselves with their flair and flashy dress, gaining thousands of social media followers. Demand for them is surging so much that many start working before even finishing their education, said Lenildo Souza, president of the nationwide federation of sign language interpreters’ associations.
In Brazil, 2.3 million people are partially or completely deaf, according to the national statistics institute. But fewer than two-thirds of those who are completely deaf know how to use Brazilian sign language, and far less among those with some hearing. That’s because people opt for cochlear implants, learn only lip-reading, or go deaf later in life, said Souza.
As such, subtitles could be more effective at transmitting lyrics; Colombian singer Karol G sang so quickly at times Friday night that some words were lost on Amorim, who isn’t fluent in Spanish. But Amorim said interpreters convey more than just lyrics of songs, which they study intensively ahead of the show. They dance to the rhythm and pull faces to transmit the music’s energy and emotion — be it euphoria, rage, mystery or sensuality. That pumps up the crowd, deaf and hearing people alike.
“We express the whole idea of the song with our expressions, with our body. We want to express the entire musical context and use literally our entire body,” said Amorim, whose older sister is deaf. “Our feet are cut off there [on the screen], but during samba songs, we’re dancing samba. It’s just like that.”
Putting deaf people up front
Rock in Rio is already one of the most accessible festivals for deaf people in the world, said Thiago Amaral, coordenador de pluralidade (diversity coordinator). Still, his team is working to innovate, and future editions could include vibrating platforms or a product similar to the vibrating vests they tested last year, he said. This year was also the first that Rock in Rio offered audio description earpieces for those with limited vision.
One of the deaf people at Rock in Rio on Friday was Henrique Miranda Martins, 24. His whole family is big into music, especially samba — his uncles play the four-string cavaquinho and pandeiro, a handheld frame drum — and he was always around it growing up. But Martins can hear little from his right ear and nothing from his left, so could never fully connect or participate.
Last year, he went to his first-ever concert with sign language interpreters, Coldplay, and it became his favorite band — even before its single whose official video features people signing. Then Martins went to the Lollapalooza festival in São Paulo. And last week he traveled from São Paulo to party with his parents at Rock in Rio.
He was most hyped to see Brazilian singer Iza on Friday, and waited to enter the special section by the stage. Iza started playing, just off to his left, but he faced the opposite direction, watching her on the screen with an interpreter in its corner. He danced and signed along with the interpreter, often in synchrony.
“I can follow the interpreter and I’m very happy to be able to feel the music and live this experience,” Martins said, speaking through an interpreter. “For deaf people, it’s very important. We can’t be outside this here. We need to be inside, with accessibility, together with everyone participating in everything. I’m very happy.”
Rock in Rio’s camera scanning the crowd found Martins vibing and locked in. For a few seconds, he was up on the big screen for everyone to see, smiling wide with his head thrown back and shaking both hands in the air — the sign for applause.
One early autumn day, nearly four decades ago, at a stadium concert in the heartland of America, Willie Nelson made a pledge to help embattled family farmers who grow the nation’s food.
On Saturday (Sept. 21), Nelson and friends renewed that promise as the annual Farm Aid festival — the longest-running concert for a cause — drew some 21,000 fans to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, New York, for a day of celebration, activism and song.
Nelson was joined by his fellow Farm Aid board members — Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and Margo Price — on a bill with Mavis Staples, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Lukas Nelson with the Travelin’ McCourys, Charley Crockett, Joy Oladokun, Southern Avenue, Cassandra Lewis, Jesse Welles and others.
The first Farm Aid concert — inspired by an impromptu call for support for America’s farmers from Bob Dylan during the Live Aid mega benefit in 1985 — was, improbably, staged weeks later that same year, on Sept. 22 in Champaign, Illinois.
Since then, Farm Aid has raised nearly $80 million to promote a strong and resilient family farm system of agriculture, while also building connections in the battles against climate change and social injustice.
New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul gave welcoming remarks before two indigenous acts — the ensemble known as Kontiwennenhá:W, from the Akwesasne community of northern New York, and the Wisdom Indian Dancers, who have performed at every Farm Aid since 1990 — began the joyous hours of music.
This was the third time Farm Aid has been staged in New York State, following a 2007 event at Randall’s Island in New York City, and a previous 2013 festival in Saratoga (during which surprise guest Pete Seeger gave his last major performance). Between 2017 and 2022, New York State lost 3,000 of 33,000 farms, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture Census, as farms across the nation suffer from rising production and labor costs, consolidation and climate change.
Here are the 12 best takeaways from the 39th annual Farm Aid.
Activists Show Up Early and Dig Deep
In a year fraught with festival cancelations due to increasing costs of production and severe weather events, All Things Go festival has taken the opposite approach and doubled down. After 10 years in Washington, D.C., All Things Go organizers announced they were adding a New York edition on the same weekend of Sept. 28-29 at Forest Hills Stadium. With more than 40,000 fans on a waitlist annually, according to ATG partner Stephen Vallimarescu, the additional location seemed less like a gamble and more about meeting demand.
“By hosting both festivals on the same weekend, we’re able to serve more of our community and deliver a lineup that we feel is best-in-class,” Vallimarescu tells Billboard.
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For several years, ATG has made a concerted effort to create lineups that reflect its growing community. Since 2018, the highest billed artists on their lineups have been women or non-binary musicians including Lorde, HAIM, Mitski, Maggie Rogers, Chvrches, Lana Del Rey, Boygenius, Carly Rae Jepsen, Charli XCX and more. And the equity isn’t only represented in gender. With performers including MUNA, Girl in Red, King Princess, Arlo Parks, Fletcher, MICHELLE, St. Vincent, Tegan and Sara and Ethel Cain, over the past five years ATG has landed some of the most LGBTQ+ filled lineups outside of LGBTQ+ events (and even many specifically LGBTQ+ events) and earning the nicknames “gaychella” and “lesbopalooza.”
This year ATG have landed some of the buzziest names in touring including Laufey, Remi Wolf, Hozier, Janelle Monáe, Reneé Rapp and Chappell Roan, who has been drawing record-breaking crowds across festivals.
“We’ve got Hozier, Conan Gray and Bleachers featured on our D.C.-area lineup alongside Laufey, Reneé Rapp, Janelle Monáe and Chappell Roan at the top of the bill,” says ATG partner Will Suter. “We’ve been able to see each of these artists perform live – either in a club or festival setting – and we’re expecting big sets from each of them.”
Billboard caught up with Vallimarescu, Suter and ATG manager of partnerships and experiential Carlie Webbert to discuss the festival’s growth, their embrace of the “lesbopalooza” nickname and how they managed to book the right acts at just the right time.
Why did you decide to add an additional All Things Go on the same weekend as the Washington, D.C. one?
Vallimarescu: After growing the festival for the past decade in Washington, D.C., and with over 40,000 fans on the waitlist annually, the decision to introduce an additional festival in New York City felt like a natural step. We were inspired by the success of festivals like Reading and Leeds and recognized that coordinating artists between both markets on the same weekend would allow us to curate the most compelling lineup possible. This approach is especially helpful for international artists, who constitute a growing portion of our lineup and often find it challenging to travel to the U.S. for a single show.
How did you land on New York for that second location?
Vallimarescu: New York City has always been on our radar, despite its reputation as a challenging market for festivals. The turning point for us was reconnecting with Mike Luba, the visionary behind Forest Hills Stadium. The unparalleled atmosphere he and his team have cultivated at the venue made it clear that this was the perfect location to bring the magic of All Things Go. There is clearly a void in New York City for a new festival experience centered around music above all else, and we’re thrilled to see the excitement around our inaugural year.
How has the reception been to the lineups for both editions?
Vallimarescu: The reception to the lineups for both editions has been phenomenal. Both festivals sold out instantly, with hundreds of thousands of fans joining the queue for tickets — a reaction we don’t take for granted, especially at a time when many established festivals are facing challenges.
Our approach to booking the festival, often more than a year in advance, focuses on building a lineup that peaks at the right moment and showcases the next generation of artists. This year, artists like Reneé Rapp, Chappell Roan, and Laufey are at the forefront of this new era, and we’re beyond grateful to be collaborating with them.
Why is it important for ATG to have a lineup with a heavy presence of women and non-binary artists?
Suter: So much of our artist booking is based on our audience feedback – and it’s become a clear direction that supports female and non/binary artist dominated lineups, especially as we’ve moved to multiple stages and homed in our genre-focus. The website Book More Women has a methodology that has our DC-area festival at about 58% female/non-binary and New York at 93%.
Was it your mission at ATG to become “gaychella” or “lesbopalooza”?
Suter: “Lesbopalooza” is a term that Naomi McPherson of MUNA coined closing out our Chrysalis stage in 2023 – and has definitely stuck. “Gaychella” popped up around the 2023 lineup announcement in a few TikTok videos. Our mission has been to create a festival and a space that’s reflective of our community – it’s a mission that has evolved over time as our direct communication with our fans has via Discord, our Boomfy’s Besties Fan Club and other fan-forward initiatives in addition to closer dialogue with many of the artists on the lineup.
What do you make of the moment queer women are having in pop culture now? With the dominance of Chappell, Reneé Rapp, MUNA, etc.?
Webbert: Queer women have a long history in the spotlight, but it feels like there has been a noticeable shift in the positive reception of these artists. With the growing fandom of this generation of pop stars, there has been an even stronger surge in self-expression and pride in being queer. Look at Chappell Roan, for instance, she grew up under the belief system that being gay was a sin. Many of the artists on the All Things Go lineup, along with their communities, share a history of shame around their sexuality. It feels like we are collectively shedding that repressed part of ourselves and creating an environment of acceptance. It’s beautiful — there’s a lot of embracing who we are and being truly seen happening.
Besides the lineup, how does ATG create an inclusive environment at the festival?
Webbert: There is a big emphasis for representation at the festival and how we platform advocacy/mission-based organizations, such as Propeller, The Ally Coalition, Reverb, Calling All Crows, Headcount, Women in Music and Amplify Her Voice. Last year, we had an activism village on-site at the D.C.-area festival where fans could interact with different non-profits and engage in a meaningful way. Our community is intentional, and by including LGBTQ+, environmental, healthcare, voter registration and other organizations, we acknowledge a clear passion for creating change that our community wants. All that said, we are hopeful that over the years this side of our festival will grow and we’re able to have an increased number of diverse voices represented throughout our programming.