Pollstar Live! 2024 Panel Preview: How Honeyland Is Elevating Black Culture Through Live Entertainment (Rainmaker Q&A)

Speakers
Amber Grimes | Love Renaissance
Shawn Gee | Live Nation Urban
Kevin Shivers | WME

The Rainmaker Q&As at Pollstar Live! are described as conversations with visionaries, change agents and thought leaders of the live entertainment industry. During the Feb. 7 Rainmaker session “Honeyland: Elevating Black Culture Through Live Entertainment,” Kevin Shivers, partner and co-head of hip-hop & R&B at WME, will share his vision for the inaugural Honeyland that took place Nov. 11-12 at Crown Festival Park in Sugar Land, Texas, approximately 20 miles southwest of downtown Houston.

“I think attendees can expect a candid discussion about how the live entertainment industry can create more intentional spaces for the Black community. Honeyland Festival is the perfect case study to demonstrate the potential of these types of events,” Shivers tells Pollstar.

Shivers came to Endeavor President and COO Mark Shapiro with the idea to create a “Black BottleRock festival” to celebrate Black music and culture. He says, “With all the capabilities of Endeavor’s flywheel, I knew this would be the place that could pull something like this off.”

In addition to performances by artists including Mary J. Blige, Miguel, Jazmine Sullivan, Tems, Lucky Daye and Chloë, Honeyland featured top chefs, mixologists and culinary stars such as Kelis, LeToya Luckett, Tracie Franklin and Toni Tipton-Martin.

Honeyland was a collaboration across WME/Endeavor as Shivers reached across his network to bring together like-minded colleagues.

Partners included IMG, On Location, 160over90, WME, Obsidianworks, Endeavor Analytics, and Endeavor Impact.

Honeyland created the Honeyland Fund to invest up to $1 million in grants to support Black creators and innovators and bring awareness to emerging talent in hospitality, events and cultural industries.

Honeyland also provided resources to those interested in careers in the culinary and entertainment industries through the Honey Crew initiative – a culinary career pipeline program designed to give under-resourced students access to educational programming, healthy eating resources, and industry professionals.

“The response was overwhelmingly positive … It’s certainly something I want to continue in future years,” Shivers says.

The Rainmaker discussion includes Shawn Gee, president of Live Nation Urban (LNU), which promoted Honeyland Festival. As a partnership with Live Nation Entertainment, LNU is focused on hip-hop, R&B and gospel by building platforms, events and festivals globally via dynamic content strategies.

Attendees will also hear from panelist Amber Grimes, who is the executive vice president / general manager at Love Renaissance (LVRN), a record label and management company that’s distributed through Interscope (via parent company Universal Music Group). Love Renaissance’s label roster includes Summer Walker, who performed at Honeyland.

Shivers’ biggest takeaway or lesson learned from Honeyland? “The festival and experience is hard work. You have to think about so many things to get customers!”

To learn more, you’ll have to attend the Rainmaker discussion at Pollstar Live! And stay tuned to Honeyland Festival’s social media pages to find out details about the 2024 edition