FestTalks: The Power of Music to Increase Young Voter Registration with #iVoted Concerts & Festival Founder Emily White
Charlotte Ege, FestForums | October 30th, 2024
With the 2024 Presidential Election cycle underway, FestForums sat down with Emily White, Founder of #iVoted Concerts & Festival, to discuss their work to incentivize voter registration by offering free concerts to potential voters. Audience members only need to share a photo of them at their polling place or with their unmarked mail-in ballot in order to attend the event. To ensure their shows are inclusive, voters can also attend by sharing what election they will be eligible for, and ineligible voters can share why they are excited to attend. With this incentive, #iVoted Concerts has been able to leverage potential voter data to increase voter registration through the power of music and community.
For the 2020 election, they incentivized voter registration during the pandemic through the inaugural #iVoted Festival, which had over 450 artists and about 12,000 attendees (#iVoted Concerts). The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) did a study on #iVoted Concerts and discovered that they were able to increase voter turnout by over 7%. This is “very high” according to White, as “traditional get-out-to-vote efforts generally increased voter turnout by 0.5% to 1%.” What makes #iVoted so effective is their use of Chartmetric, a platform that provides comprehensive data on trends in the music industry (Chartmetric). They use this data to find out what talent is trending in key voter states, and to book events based on what artists are most popular among these communities. Rather than booking the biggest artists, they are able to specifically target young voters in these locations with what is relevant to them.
Read the full interview with Emily White below!
#iVoted Concerts puts on events based on trending artists in the location of your event and their civic impact. Can you talk more about the artists you have worked with?
Right now, we’re in the midst of producing 18 shows this fall to increase voter registration and voter turnout. We also did a few data-driven climate impact shows in September where folks gained entry by opting in to learn about clean energy jobs in Detroit and New Orleans. This year, we've had artists like Lil Tecca, Big Frida, Anida Franco, Young Gravy, Skilla Baby, Tee Grizzly, Cash Doll, Chromio, Bob Schneider, Grace Webber, Town Mountain, and CAKE.
Increasing voter turnout is evidently essential to a functional democracy. How have you been able to see the impact of these shows on a grassroots level?
After starting our initiative in 2018, we pivoted during the pandemic and produced the largest digital concert in history, with over 450 artists participating. MIT has analyzed our impact, showing that #iVoted concerts increased voter turnout by over 7%, which is very high. Traditional get-out-to-vote efforts generally increased voter turnout by 0.5% to 1%, if that.
And there’s no doubt in my mind that that’s because we booked for the data. I lead a young and diverse team of music industry professionals, and literally, some of the leaders of the American concert industry are on our board. But even with all that music industry experience, we don't try to book an artist just because we know they’re cool or they have a big Instagram following. Since 2020, we've booked talent for the data. Because what people are listening to in Milwaukee is totally different from Madison, and totally different from Chicago, and totally different from Grand Rapids. Even though geographically those places are not very far apart.
This year, I'm a visiting fellow at Johns Hopkins University at the SNF Accord Institute, where we've analyzed the top trending artists in each location, comparing their unique fan demographics to local voter files to show which artists have the most low propensity voters in their audience and can therefore have the greatest civic impact.
Some may suggest that we book Taylor Swift, which we would love. However, while Taylor has the most listeners in Atlanta, Drake, 21 Savage and Future can actually turn out way more voters. The size of the artist doesn’t necessarily matter. Taylor Swift fans already tend to vote. It's really about the makeup of that audience.
To dig in, we had our first #iVoted event for the 2024 election, a drive agency concert, in Philadelphia in September. 90% of our RSVPs were under 30. Half of them were 18 to 24. And it was a whole bunch of kids singing along to T Grizzly, who has just been metaphorically “screaming” at me and the data. So I'm not totally surprised that our RSVPs were through the roof for him, because people in this area are really excited about him. There’s also around 150,000 songs released daily. None of us could ever know all of the artists that are really “going off”.
However, Live Nation Urban is our booking partner. Shawn Gee, the President, said to me, “I'm not surprised [T Grizzly] is going off in your data. Do you know why?” And I said, “no”. And he said, “he's really big in the gaming and Twitch and streaming community.” So we've lived in a Long Tail music industry for quite a while. And that's exactly what we're tapping into.
It’s very important to focus on younger voter registration to ensure better voter turnout in the future. How has data helped you target these younger communities and what have you learned from past elections?
I've learned so much! Like, what people are listening to may differ completely from two different communities even if they’re right next to each other. This has also validated my experiences within my career - I've run management companies for decades, but haven’t thought as much about the industry in this context. I've managed artists that get the most press ever, but have been hard to draw a crowd even at small venues, and then I’ve also worked with artists that the press hates, but will sell out multiple nights at Madison Square Garden and Red Rocks [Amphitheatre] - which, a lot of the time, these are jam bands or EDM acts.
So I've seen this concept both in my career, but also really drilling in on this data. For example, I'm originally from Milwaukee. We have data sets on the top trending artists in any location on Google Maps of national acts, as well as local acts from specific locations. The artists that I'd heard of before, like artists to watch from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s or at South by Southwest, or the ones that get a lot of opening slots on Radio Milwaukee, actually don't have fans. They are good networkers, maybe they can afford a publicist, and can really build up those local media relations.
My white whale that we've been close to getting, but they're always on tour and super busy, is a Latin hip hop group called Kento Sol. So if you really want to get folks excited in Milwaukee, book Kento Sol and not necessarily the names that you might read about in the media.
Of course, young voters like those that are Gen Z, outreach may be easier as they are more involved in social media. How do you reach out to voters that may not have as much access to or be involved in social media?
This is not an exact statistic, but Billboard kindly pointed out that around two thirds of young people attend concerts, but only around one third vote. We're bridging that gap and meeting potential voters where they already are. And also meeting them with what is relevant or interesting to them.
I was interviewing an award-winning journalist on the #iVoted Podcast in summer and she said she kept reminding her 18 year old daughter to register to vote, and she hasn't done it yet. And in my head, I'm like, “oh my gosh, if your kid isn't registered, like we're kind of screwed.” Then she said her daughter spent all summer following around a band called the Accidentals. I smiled because the Accidentals were playing our massive webcasts because they're one of the top trending artists in Michigan. And I think that all really ties this together because the main determining factor on if someone votes is if their family votes, their friends, their religious affiliation. It's very community based.
There is no stronger community than music communities, band communities, band communities, right? And in when you’re 18, 19, 21, 30, your favorite band and its community might be one of your most important lifelines. So, really coming together and voting truly makes a difference, especially when elections are decided by the size of content venues and our industry knows how to fill them. So let's do it and tie in voting.
Do you feel like you've had a significantly different experience going into this election? Or has it been building up from your previous work with the 2020 online event?
I mean, on the one hand, I'm definitely always growing and learning. I was just thinking of the big picture of funding in the civic space, and people working together instead of there being free concerts in Milwaukee this week. But on the other hand, I would love to just meditate for 20 minutes right now to be totally honest with you. But, I'm not nearly as stressed as I was in 2020. And this isn't nearly as hard as it was in 2018 when it was just myself and an intern.
I think everyone in the music industry can relate to this, that when you first start out, it can be really hard and overwhelming. I was a tour manager in college, and I remember one night being really, really overwhelmed. But I ended up retiring from tour managing by the time I was 23, because I wasn't challenged by it anymore. Although, especially as an entrepreneur in the civic space, we're always growing and evolving and learning and adapting and changing with the times, whether it’s a pandemic or whatever is going on.
My mentor is Mike Luba, and he's such an iconic person and concert promoter. But I remember him telling me probably in my early 20s, because I was a super intense manager, that it’ll all mellow with age. And it's true, right?
And my CMO, and some of our board members, have a really great perspective as well. Whether it’s Kevin Lyman or John Boyle, they have the long game in mind, because they have so much experience. I’m definitely experienced, and we know what we’re doing is really crucial. But in general, the music industry, which I love, it's my second family - we're not curing cancer here. You know, it's just really important to take care of yourselves and take care of each other amidst all of it.
How has your background working in the music industry aided in your experience in transitioning into the civic space?
It's everything. Like I said, the music industry is my second family. That is still like who I am professionally at my core. I've been in the music industry for 20 plus years, but I've been in the civic space for seven. It’s so cute. I just got a text from a peer asking if I studied political science in school. I'm gonna write her back and say, I just learned and figured it out over the past seven years, just like we do in the music industry. It’s absolutely my music industry foundation. It's who I am professionally. It's definitely everything.
I thought of #iVoted because I realized that elections are decided by the size of concert venues. I read that voter turnout was down. I was like, why don't we fill them, and tie in voting as best we can. I've built #iVoted brick by brick over the past seven years. Definitely this year, we’re fortunate that some funding and great partners have come in.
I've also brought in our CMO, Brian Calhoun, our radio promo lead Lamont Hayes. Brian is one of the best marketers in the industry. He's literally a genius. I mean, just talk about like a jack-of-all-trades. And we’re both like, it feels so good to do this stuff. And I tell concert promoters the same thing, like, we're doing what we always do. We're just applying it to something else. Applying it to voter turnout and climate, and we want to expand to more impact concerts in 2025 and beyond.
—
The best way to get more involved with #iVoted Concerts is to check out their website, to attend, tell your friends, and share on social media. For music industry professionals looking to get involved, look to the Music Votes Coalition, a coalition of 40 leading non-profit organizations in the music and activism space. If you visit to music-votes.org, you can make sure attendees and members of the music industry are ready to go and vote.
#iVoted can also provide custom data to show where an artist can increase their civic impact, and artists can also get paid to DJ at the polls. White notes that they are working on sharing more non-partisan cause-based issues for music industry professionals to opt into, with movements such as climate change, LGBTQ+ Pride, and the Black Lives Matter movement. There are many ways to get involved through #iVoted beyond the upcoming 2024 election and into the future.