Third LoveLoud Festival To Feature Kesha, Dan Reynolds, Tegan & Sara, More June 29

Jerod Harris / Getty Images – LoveLoud Festival
The second-year LoveLoud Festival brings nearly 30,000 people to Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City July 28, and raises $1 million for Dan Reynolds’ LoveLoud Foundation whose mission is to unconditionally love, understand, support and accept LGBTQ friends and family.

Imagine Dragons lead singer Dan Reynolds will bring the third-annual

The festival will feature a headlining performance by Grammy-nominated pop star and equality advocate Kesha, as well as Martin Garrix, Dan Reynolds, Tegan & Sara, Daya, Grouplove, K. Flay, PVRIS, and Laura Jane Grace, with more performers and speakers promised to be added soon. Proceeds will benefit local and national LGBTQ+ charities including The Trevor Project, GLAAD, The Human Rights Campaign, Tegan And Sara Foundation and others.

“LOVELOUD is back again this year and stronger than ever,” Reynolds said in a statement. “We are excited to celebrate our LGBTQ youth through music and spoken word. My hope is that they feel loved, accepted and perfect just the way they are. I invite all the political and religious leaders of Utah to join us as we show our LGBTQ youth that they are not just loved, but truly accepted and appreciated.”

June 29 is a significant date that coincides with the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots during which members of the gay community violently demonstrated against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan.

The festival will be live streamed in its entirety on AT&T’s social media channels, as the sponsor of the event.

LGBTQ+ teen suicide is one of the most troubling issues in the community, with suicide the second leading cause of death in the U.S. among young people ages 10 to 24 according to the Center for Disease Control. Furthermore, LGBTQ+ youth who come from families that do not accept them are more than eight times more likely to attempt suicide than those that do.

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Last year’s LoveLoud took place at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City July 28, selling out at near 30,000 tickets and raising $1 million with music from artists including Imagine Dragons, Zedd, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, Grace Vanderwaal, Neon Trees’ Tyler Glenn, A.W. and Vagabon, along with speeches or performances from the likes of Apple CEO Tim Cook, singer and dancer Julianne Hough, and Tegan Quin of Tegan and Sara.

Imagine Dragons’ booking agent, Corrie Christopher Martin of Paradigm Talent Agency, was instrumental in not only the LoveLoud Festival but the “Believer” documentary, in which Reynolds, a straight Mormon man, explores the church’s attitude toward the LGBTQ community and the rising suicide rate of teens.

“On a social level, the most important thing that’s come out of both ‘Believer’ and the LoveLoud Foundation and festival is the conversation – bringing awareness to the church’s stance on LGBTQ issues and just making people aware that we have a suicide epidemic happening,” Christopher Martin told Pollstar after last year’s LoveLoud Festival. “And that applies outside of Utah as well and outside the Mormon church. We just want to make sure that the kids are supported and loved and choosing life over ending it because they don’t have community support, which is what has been happening in Utah specifically.”

Martin also told Pollstar of the fest’s somewhat humble beginnings, explaining: “Dan had this idea and wanted to do it in a park. It started off very small. The Dragons were just going to show up in a park and play and support this cause and bring attention to this issue, and then it evolved and became much bigger. My experience in festival production from Riot Fest really helped me dive in and help him pull this thing off and bring it to life. It certainly wasn’t ideal with such a last-minute lead time but we pulled it off. “