Entertainment Weekly will present its first PopFest event in Los Angeles on October 29 and 30. The new two-day festival, located at the Reef downtown, will bring a mix of pop culture-related events including live music, film and TV screenings, and talks with talent and creators including bold-faced names from entertainment, video games, and more.
The event is meant as an immersive live and digital experience for fans, celebrities, and brand partners for the title, and will tap into Entertainment Weekly’s combined audience of 28 million engaged fans.
The lineup includes James Corden, the host of CBS's The Late Late Show; a performance by Nick Jonas; Emmy-winning showrunner Ryan Murphy; and more.
Christy Bellina, Time Inc.’s vice president of brand marketing for entertainment and style, said the timing and climate were right to launch such an event. “EW has been planning to expand our live-event platform for several years,” she said. In November, the brand hosted a one-day consumer event in New York “that served as an incubator” for what is now rolling out as PopFest, she said.
Bellina described the target audience as “the pop culture fanatic, spanning millennials, Gen Xers, and beyond.” She said the brand expects to draw about 7,500 throughout the weekend.
“With multiple stages and genre-specific hubs—TV, film, books, etc.—the event will create an intimate and personal connection with fans,” she said. “PopFest offers EW the opportunity to connect with consumers and to create a unique experiential event with their favorite actors, musicians, authors, digital influencers, showrunners, and more.”
And she described the platform as unique compared to other programs in the marketplace: “We feel PopFest is unique as it’s in one location over two days and is in a class of its own due to the high caliber of talent that agreed to participate because they love EW.”
Overall, Bellina characterized the event as larger in scope and scale than EW Fest—and located in a more logical place to draw talent. “The smaller, one-day event in New York City was so well received that we expanded the model to two days and moved it to L.A. to be closer to the pulse of the entertainment industry,” she said.
PopFest fits into Entertainment Weekly’s marketing mix, which already includes a diverse slate of programs around the country. Events include a pre-Screen Actors Guild Awards party in Los Angeles each January, a red carpet dinner series in February, South by Southwest activations in Austin each March and the Austin Television Festival in June, Comic-Con events in San Diego each summer, and a pre-Emmys V.I.P. tent in September. EW furthers its North American event presence with the EW Must List party in Toronto in September around the Toronto International Film Festival.
Now appears to be the right time and climate—and Southern California the right region—to launch new live event programming of this nature. Complex magazine also announced in May a two-day pop culture fest in Southern California: ComplexCon will be a festival and exhibition meant to bring together topics like art, food, style, sports, and music. It’s coming to the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center in November.
