Categories: Digital

OUTLOUD Music Festival 2022

Kicking off the City of West Hollywood’s inaugural WEHO Pride, JJLA produced OUTLOUD Music Festival 2022 from June 3-5.

In partnership with Twitch, the three-day festival featured a hybrid concert experience held in West Hollywood Park. It was broadcast globally on Twitch’s homepage, garnering a daily average of 10,000 attendees and over half a million virtual viewers.

Headliners of the event were Years and Years, Jessie J, MARINA, and Lil Kim with supporting performances by Dorian Electra, Cupcakke, a debut from POSE’s Angelica Ross and more.

OUTLOUD seeks to create a platform for LGBTQ+ and allied musicians, as these are the voices vital to uplifting our diverse and marginalized community. For this reason, OUTLOUD is active not only during Pride, but year-round.

OUTLOUD Music Festival featured two stages on its festival grounds: the Main Stage, featuring our headlining acts, and the Unity Stage, featuring drag performances from queens as fierce as Aquaria, DJ sets and extravagant dance numbers. The whole weekend was hosted by a diverse array of queer community.

OUTLOUD’s VIP Area provided cryotherapy, body massages, vitamin samples, and other spa treatments in a beautiful grass setting with a private bar. The space was filled with outdoor lounge furniture, large bean bags and Red Bull charging stations, encouraging guests to kick back and relax without worrying about missing a moment of fun.

The festival was blessed with several of LA’s hottest food trucks catering to every taste.

The Festival featured ADA accommodations which included wheelchair accessible viewing platforms and sign language interpreters.

OUTLOUD was covered by a variety of press outlets including KTLA, Billboard, and USA Today.

OUTLOUD Spotlight

OUTLOUD Spotlight represents the next generation of up-and-coming Queer artists. In 2022, we featured 70 LGBTQIA+ live music performances, special guest appearances, and interactive games through a bi-weekly show for our Twitch viewers globally. Reaching 6.72 million live viewers in our two-year partnership with Twitch, OUTLOUD created a unique Queer space that otherwise would not exist and demonstrated the need for community-centered live music content.

As a part of closing out this year’s partnership, OUTLOUD Spotlight returns to hosting in-person live events. Through the annual OUTLOUD music festival and in-person Spotlight events, we reached over 30,000 LA-local community members and event attendees. Our irreplicable approach to live music and music talk content welcomes all walks of life to become allies and celebrate their identities. OUTLOUD is poised to expand its reach and programming variety further in 2023.

City Year Spring Break Live!

On May 2, 2021, non-profit City Year hosted their annual Spring Break event which celebrates their dedicated AmeriCorps members who stepped up for students during a time of enormous hardship, helping them achieve academically while also serving as a critical social lifeline. While the incredible work being done is always worth honoring, the 2021 event had an extra layer of poignancy given how AmeriCorps members stepped up for students ina time of enormous hardship, helping them achieve academically while also serving as a critical social lifeline during a pandemic full of isolation and uncertainty.

Mirroring the pivot to virtual in the classroom, City Year’s Spring Break fundraiser took place on a virtual platform, energetically blasting through the screen to provide an evening of music, inspiration, and fun. The free event featured musical performances by Miguel and guest appearances by actors Steve Yeun, America Ferrara, Regina King, Jesse Williams, and Sterling K. Brown who read beautiful “Why I Serve” pieces written by AmeriCorps members. Long-time supporter Octavia Spencer returned as host, sharing her love and dedication for the organization.

On top of countless sponsorship contributions, roughly 200 donors took advantage of the text-to-donate feature over the course of the one-hour show  This resulted in over 1.6 million dollars raised for the nonprofit.

JJLA creative produced, directed, and edited the live event which can now be viewed on Vimeo. Check it out here.

Outloud: Raising Voices 2021

JJLA presented OUTLOUD: Raising Voices from June 4th-6th at the Los Angeles Coliseum, kicking off the first in-person Pride Month event of 2021.

JJLA knew the return to in-person events needed to be bigger and better than ever, so OUTLOUD teamed up with Pride Live’s Stonewall Day in conjunction with Adam Lambert’s Feel Something Foundation to create something truly special! To extend the experience beyond the Coliseum, JJLA partnered with Twitch to livestream the three-day music festival for fans all around the world. Additionally, each day, OUTLOUD introduced different LGBTQIA+ charity partners, helping to raise awareness and funds for these causes. JJLA utilized the Tiltify platform to make contributing a seamless process for donors.

Boasting over 4.8 million streams on Twitch, OUTLOUD: Raising Voices gained global attention with a captivating line-up that shone a spotlight on queer musicians. Headliners included Sofi Tukker, Hayley Kiyoko and Adam Lambert, with performances by Daya, VINCINT, Kim Petras, JoJo and a surprise debut performance by POSE star Michaela Jaé Rodriguez OUTLOUD strategically paired up-and-coming LGBTQIA+ performers in lineups with well established headliners, exposing them to new audiences and adding a layer of discovery to the event. Performers reflected the diversity of the LGBTQIA+ community through their varied ages, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, and music styles.

To engage virtual viewers, OUTLOUD: Raising Voices created an interactive hybrid experience with hosts DJ Hannah Rad, Ryan “The Slaygawd” Mitchell, and Shar Jossell connecting with Twitch viewers live from the Vizzy Stage. This incredibly entertaining trio responded in real time to viewer comments, music requests, and questions throughout all three days of the event. They interviewed performers and OUTLOUD special guests and the virtual audience was encouraged to interact with each attendee to expand the “in person” experience to at-home guests around the world.

JJLA was solely responsible for the entirety of the show’s production, and was honored to be a key part of bringing live events back to Los Angeles.

Red Bull Batalla

Over the last 14 years, Red Bull Batalla has grown into the leading global competition for Spanish freestyle rapping. Every year, Red Bull accepts amateur performers from all over the world and brings them into the limelight, providing an opportunity to be noticed and heard by millions! JJLA was asked to produce the USA National Finals on September 18th, 2021, as 16 competitors battled it out to be crowned the US National Champion.

In addition to livestreaming on Twitch and Red Bull’s very own Red Bull TV, the high-energy 2021 competition had a live audience – a first for the event! Working with two trusted A/V (4Wall) and Audio (MS Events) vendors, JJLA was able to bring the competitors and audience into The Cypher, a 30-foot, 360 Degree LED video ring, where the contestants went head to head. It was a massive production undertaking, and the combination of the live performances, incredible energy from the audience, and sizzling visuals combined to create a dynamic, adrenaline-fueled event consistent with Red Bull’s boundary-pushing brand. As they announced the winner, everyone was up on their feet, cheering for more!

It was a day filled with culture, entertainment and passion. Click the link to watch the full experience here.

DAP Health – Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards

On Sunday, May 9th, 2021, DAP Health hosted its annual Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards virtually, broadcasting as a Mother’s Day television special on NBC Palm Springs for the first time in the organization’s 30 year history. In celebration of the successful “Hope Begins with Health” fundraising campaign, DAP Health highlighted leading humanitarians, healthcare workers, and heroes of the community, as well as local businesses and mother-figures for a powerful hour of inspiration focused on spotlighting the selfless efforts of healthcare’s finest.

JJLA creative directed, produced, and edited the show, including filming on-site with TV Personality and DAP Health Board Member Scott Nevins; interviewing DAP Health clients, employees, and community supporters; and producing in-studio performances with Sheryl Lee Ralph and Shoshana Bean. Working hand in hand with DAP Health, JJLA made sure that each element of the show illuminated DAP Health’s four pillars of service: Ongoing HIV Care, Access to Healthcare, Behavioral Health, and Coronavirus Testing. This expert attention to storytelling drove connection with the audience, streamlining DAP Health’s messaging and ensuring that each moment of the TV special had maximum impact.

To top it off, JJLA curated custom gift boxes for guests to enjoy the evening of the show at home. Gift items were selected from local businesses that have supported DAP Health over the years, creating the perfect virtual event viewing kit for an in-person tangible experience.

JJLA is so pleased that during a time when coming together in person was difficult, we were able to put our technical savvy to work, creating a virtual show that streamed across social media and a custom website in addition to airing on NBC Palm Springs. You can take a look at it here!

Point Foundation

The Point Foundation, the nation’s LGBTQ scholarship fund, typically hosts a wide variety of events throughout their calen- dar year, ranging from potential scholar orientations, leadership information sessions, localized fundraisers, as well as two major galas in NY and LA.With COVID-19 causing event cancellations and much uncertainty for the remainder of 2020, The Point Foundation and JJLA quickly pivoted and began to brainstorm new ways to engage donors outside of the typical Zoom or Facebook Live fundraiser.

And thus,The Point Foundation University was born. Utilizing digital design and rendering services previously reserved for showing clients mock-ups of how an event might look in-person, JJLA helped to translate a virtual reality into a fully interactive fundraising tool.The plan was to launch 8 individual microsites that would allow for each of the small fundraiser markets to host their own, unique event. Guests would be emailed the link to peruse and would be able to pass the information on to any other potential donors they felt would be interested in learning more – widening the reach of an event that was typically held in a private home for 75-100 people.

OUTLOUD: Raising Voices

OUTLOUD, JJLA’s owned and operated event brand was set to launch as a live event series at in March 2020 at SXSW in Austin,TX.With the cancellation of the event due to the worldwide pandemic, JJLA quickly pivoted its event series to a digital platform, creating OUTLOUD: Raising Voices, kicking off

it’s series with its SXSW musical line-up on Facebook.The digital concert series would prove to be a success, garnering views and giving a platform to marginalized voices and a space for a community to come together during a difficult time in the world.

OUTLOUD: Raising Voices is a digital series celebrating the artistry, identity and inclusiveness of up-and-coming and established talent within the LGBTQIA+ community.

Each episode discovers and promotes emerging LGBTQ talent, dropping new releases, EPs and albums for some of the community’s biggest artists and allies.

Season One of OUTLOUD: Raising Voices premiered in June of 2020. With nearly 1M viewers throughout 9 episodes OUTLOUD was able to reach our audience through targeted ad buys promoting each episode. Using insights from our audience we also designed a campaign to increase the growth of the newly established community.