With music venues on lock-down and the entertainment industry in crisis, YouTube saw an opportunity to leverage its resources and inspire urgent action to save independent live music.

Partnering with the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), YouTube co-produced a first-of-its-kind virtual music festival that entertained music fans sheltering in place and moved them to become activists to support those in need in the live entertainment industry.

This crucial event marked the first time artists and production crews could safely re-enter venues to perform for their fans around the world - ensuring live entertainment was here to stay.

Formed at the onset of the pandemic, the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) aims to preserve and nurture the ecosystem of independent live performance venues and promoters throughout the United States.

The organization launched the #SaveOurStages campaign to raise awareness of the existential crisis faced by independent venues across the country, and encourage music fans, artists & industry to write letters to Congress and implore legislators to financially support these institutions. These institutions and their employees were in dire straits, being forced to close their doors permanently, if support was not provided imminently.

The objective of Save Our Stages Fest was to leverage YouTube’s platform, resources & technology to supercharge the #SaveOurStages movement. The 3-day virtual music festival sought to raise awareness, funds & advocacy for the National Independent Venue Foundation and its 3000+ independent music venues on the verge of permanent closures due to COVID-19.

The US live independent music industry was on the verge of extinction due to pandemic closures. Meanwhile, concert live-streams were exploding on YouTube as artists found new methods of entertaining fans.

With the insight that music can be a powerful tool for activism, the creative idea was to leverage YouTube’s global platform to raise awareness and funds for the urgent cause by producing a virtual benefit festival with the world’s most influential artists, performing live in iconic US indie venues at risk of closing forever.

Artists were eager to support venues that played a critical role in their careers, and get back to playing live after being locked at home. The execution of a live streamed festival with 35+ artists performing live from 20+ venues safely during a pandemic required an unprecedented level of creativity and collaboration amongst thousands of music lovers across the country.

The strategy was to produce a virtual festival so inspiring that it could motivate a large audience to take action - specifically donating to NIVA’s Emergency Relief Fund and writing letters to policymakers.

The lineup was a diverse, wide-range of artists with broad appeal -- from young independent bands with cancelled tours, to iconic artists passionate about supporting the historic stages where they got their start.

Marketing & PR efforts included high-impact placements and grassroots community engagement with a passionate base of artists, fans, venues & influencers. We drove billions of impressions and thousands of press hits globally. Stand-out elements included an anthem tribute video narrated by Neil Young, intimate video portraits of iconic venues & high-impact promotion on both the Google and YouTube homepages.

We also partnered with local artists to create custom promotional posters, unique to each venue - sold as limited edition mementos to drive incremental fundraising.

YouTube and NIVA were committed to executing a proper music festival with artists performing live from venue stages despite the challenges. High quality sound, lighting, stage visuals & production was a must for the important cause.

Shooting with artists at the height of the pandemic wasn’t easy. We used AI-powered automated camera rigs to minimize production crews, brought on public health experts to advise on the most up-to-date testing protocols & assembled a virtual crew of thousands across the country.

The festival took place October 16-18 2020, with a linear livestream hosted on NIVA’s YouTube channel and performances simultaneously streaming on the performers’ Official Artist YouTube channels to maximize reach. In aggregate, hosting channels had tens of millions of YouTube subscribers. Additionally, the YouTube Giving campaign was activated on all channels, which enabled the audience to chat and donate to NIVA’s Emergency Relief Fund with one click.

This first-of-its-kind festival was impactful for music lovers, independent venues and the entertainment industry at large. SOSFest drew an audience of 7M unique viewers and raised over $2M for the NIVA Emergency Relief Fund via fan-powered donations and festival sponsorships. The production itself equipped 20+ venues with permanent AI-powered live streaming capabilities for the future.

The festival drove billions of media impressions, with over 900 press stories and coverage with top broadcast, music, consumer, trade and regional outlets (eg. Late Night with Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel and the Today Show). The Satellite Media Tour reached 21 million people with 1,648 air local market airdates.

Raising awareness of the issue at the national level helped secure $15B in grants as part of the Save Our Stages Act (also known as the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant), heralded as the “the biggest show of federal support for arts & culture in US history”.