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Red Bull Music Academy Arrives In LA
The West Coast edition of the Red Bull Music Academy Festival is set to launch in Los Angeles tomorrow. The month-long event will see performances by Flying Lotus, Thundercat, and St. Vincent, and talks from figures like Ice-T.
John Davisson – Thundercat
Thundercat says hello to the crowd at Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival at Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif., April 15.
For those unfamiliar, Red Bull Music Academy is a takeover of various venues with eclectic musical performances representing a vast spectrum of sound often talks and multimedia experiences. It has happened several times in New York and recently concluded in Paris for the third time. The shindig jumps off in the City of Angeles tonight with “A Conversation with Alice Bag,” which will see the feminist punk “share her hard-earned wisdom” at
Red Bull Music Academy’s Adam Shore told Pollstar that the festivals are held in cities with rich musical heritage to tell its unique stories. Tokyo will be having its first festival later this month.
“It just felt like the time is right. There’s just so many exciting things happening in LA,” Shore said. “So many scenes, so many creative people. I feel like LA is having another cultural renaissance and we just wanted to be a part of it.”
“We really design these to celebrate the music, the artists, the music culture and the music histories of these cities.”
Tickets to all of festival’s events are on sale now.
Tons of musical performances, speaking engagements and dance parties are on the books, many of which will utilize an “Open Beta” temporary multimedia performance space, which will use audio-visual technology to bring unique experiences from artists like Arca, Sophie, and Eartheater.
St. Vincent will give fans a chance to hear some of her new, currently unreleased material in technicolor at
Flying Lotus and Thundercat will be joining forces at Hollywood Forever Cemetery Oct. 14-15.
The conversation with Ice-T will be held Oct. 28 at
The events are only the beginning though, as Shore said organizers use Red Bull Radio, the RBMA website, social media, and other channels to better tell the stories of Los Angeles music.
“Around every event that we do, there’s always a story behind every event. We use our other channels to help build more context around that story, to tell a more complete story, and have more ways that people can get turned on to what we’re doing.
“With every event we also create hours of radio content on Red Bull Radio. We also broadcast all our shows live on Red Bull Radio and we have a 2-hour live show that we’re gonna be doing every day over the entire month where we interview and have conversations with people who are really doing great things in music in LA.”
Shore said the Red Bull team makes a special effort to market each of the festival’s events.
“I have to give the Red Bull team a lot of credit. They create original marketing plans for every single event that we do. The type of person that is going to the St. Vincent show tomorrow may not be the type of person going to the extreme metal Mexican music festival … who may be the same person who wants to come to the Uncle Jamm’s Army show or the Alice Coltrane show.
If you want all the latest on the events associated with Red Bull Music Academy Festival, check out its Pollstar festival page.