Circus Adele

Musicians launch their own festivals, Stanford researches the power of movies, and Idris Elba wants to build Africa’s Hollywood

Happy Friday to all who celebrate (i.e., basically everyone). Here’s something to take a listen to this weekend — in November 2023, Coldplay put out a call for fans to send in a recording of them singing “Ahhhh.” Well, if you were one of the 137,204 people across 207 countries who did so, then you can now hear yourself (at least in a chorus) in the song “ONE WORLD” off their new MOON MUSIC album. And, amazingly, everyone’s credited.

DAILY TOP TRENDS

Musicians Tune Up Their Own Music Festivals

Top artists like Morgan Wallen and Adele are launching their own music festivals in a bid to build long-lasting cultural moments.

The Main Stage: The post-COVID IRL-event boom is in full swing, especially as fans look to build community with like-minded people. Artists, who already have credibility with their music, are able to break through the noise when organizing events.

Between The Setlists: Concerts provide an experience for a couple of hours, but festivals expand the experience to a couple of days.

  • Morgan Wallen announced a partnership with AEG and Goldenvoice to launch the Sand In My Boots festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama — which is really a rebrand of the Hangout Music Festival, just now with the Wallen stamp of approval.

  • Pharrell and Tyler, the Creator have brought their curation to their respective Something in the Water and Camp Flog Gnaw festivals, which have been selling out for years.

  • Adele had a specially designed stadium built in Germany that had an English pub, a karaoke stage (for belting out “Rolling in the Deep,” of course), and a Ferris wheel, turning the concert series into full-day events.

  • Karol G hosted her two-day Mañana Será Bonito event in Colombia, which had a ball pit, merry-go-round, and arcade games.

Encore: Kirk M. Sommer, the global co-head of music at WME, told Bloomberg that “people want super-focused experiential events that are thoughtfully curated around a subject or talent.” It’s that uniqueness which makes it enticing to fans and even broadens the artist’s appeal. And considering artists also get paid as curators or creative leads of the events, it could provide a rich new line of revenue… even when the artist stops headlining.

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A Good Movie May Change Our Minds

Stanford researchers are studying how movies can literally rewire our brains to feel more empathy for subjects or individuals — the first academic study of its kind — starting with the 2019 drama Just Mercy.

The Big Thought: It’s always been known that art has the power to shift our perspective and make us feel… but analyzing the science behind that could give filmmakers the data to make their stories as impactful as possible.

Between The Gray Matter: After producer Scott Budnick screened his movie Just Mercy for Barack Obama, the former president wondered if “a film could literally change somebody’s brain matter.” That led to more screenings of the movie… but now at Stanford under an MRI machine.

  • The study, conducted by psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt and professor Jamil Zaki, had 749 people watch videos of incarcerated people talking about their experiences and then rate what they thought those men were feeling.

  • Those rates were then measured against what the incarcerated men rated they were actually feeling — those two rates were far from alignment.

  • But after watching Just Mercy, the test subjects more accurately pinpointed what the incarcerated people felt — a phenomenon dubbed “empathic accuracy.”

  • MRI tests started in the spring, measuring how empathy regions in the brain have been changed after watching the movie. The data is still being analyzed.

Final Perspective: The study is focusing on the power of “narrative transportation,” or how losing ourselves in a story can change our attitudes. For example, subjects became 20% more likely to oppose the death penalty after watching the movie — double the effect of political canvassing. And that power is reported to transcend political leanings and race.

If movies are scientifically proven to be the “great empathy machine” (as critic Roger Ebert once put it), then popular entertainment could be considered a treatment for societal fracturing by governments, non-profits, and mental health experts.

DEEP DIVES

Can a powerful film change your perspective?

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65.9% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Do you order takeout?

“It’s more expensive now that almost every restaurant uses a third-party delivery service, but if it’s been a long day, and I’m too tired to cook, I’ll give in — especially the night before trash collection when my neighbors’ bins take up all the street parking, and I don’t want to lose my spot!”

“Since the pandemic, we order takeout weekly and now get our groceries delivered.”

“No doubt cooking at home is much cheaper and healthier, but after working all week, the pizza arriving on a Friday night is sublime!”

“I can cook better than any takeout. Plus, it never arrives hot. I’d rather not.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

QUICK HITS

→ Entertainment / Media

💸 Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel is shifting around his balance sheets, offloading Professional Bull Riders, On Location, and most of IMG to TKO Group… where he’s also CEO.

🎥 Actor-producer Idris Elba plans to move to Africa in the next decade to help build up the continent’s film industry, including stages already being built in Tanzania and Ghana.

🎤 Killer Mike and Dave Chappelle are going on tour together for a novel mix of comedy and hip-hop.

→ Fashion / E-commerce

👗 Miu Miu is now the hottest brand in fashion… at least according to the influential Lyst Index.

👕 Marc Kalman, the brainchild behind Travis Scott’s aesthetics, is debuting his own brand — Still Kelly.

🍸 Liquor brands are turning to artists to give their limited-edition bottles a new design, which is already shaking up sales.

→ Creator Economy

📺 Multi-hyphenate filmmaker and producer Issa Rae named the first five participants of her Stubio program in partnership with Tubi.

📱 eMarketer found that the most important metric for influencer marketing professionals is the reach of a campaign.

🤑 Keeping up with microtrends is exhausting creators’ wallets.

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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney.
Copy edited & published by Kait Cunniff.

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