Today, Ideaison announces the lineup for RETROSPEKT a two-day multi-genre immersive micro music and art festival at the Moxy South Beach on July 10-11, 2021. The new kind of “micro” music festival (under 1K capacity/day) was born from the success of a virtual music festival in the heart of Covid. Now it’s going “hybrid” as the experience, and fans will be live-streamed on Twitch, with select acts paid per show on Cisco Adler & Donavon Frankenreiter’s Concert Live stream platform Nocap. A limited capacity will be afforded the opportunity of being in the stream and at the shows LIVE in Miami.
Sets will be programmed across three custom-designed stages designed and curated by Molly Surno, whose company Push Projects was hired to art direct Brooklyn‘s dance music club Elsewhere and in collaboration with Maktive, the creative geniuses behind Electric Zoo, Splash House, and Friendship Cruise and Aerial Dragons, a Florida-based aerial entertainment and circus collective.
The main stage will be at the pool. RETROSPEKT will integrate over 50 live acts from all genres of music spanning blues, rock, rap, pop, r&b, funk, soul, reggae, dance music & more. Headliners include WuTang Clan’s Ghostface Killah, Sabrina Claudio, who is set to open for The Weeknd’s “After Hours” North American tour at the end of the year, Tycho’s new project ISO50, which is his solo live show with guitar and keyboards, basically his station from the band show with different performance elements, New York's funk lords themselves Chromeo, rising star LP Giobbi B2B Sophie from Sofi Tukker (in Sophie’s first solo DJ appearance without Tukker) and more. Other up and coming talent includes Detroit’s respected DJ and producer DJ Minx, disco and house king Eli Escobar, Tik Tok sensation Blu DeTiger, bluesy bedroom pop vocalist Mia Gladstone, British R&B crooner Col3trane, Grammy-nominated New Orleans based Tank and the Bangas, Vindata (who have collaborated with Skrillex), Miami’s Life on Planets, Sofia Valdes and Judith Hill, and over 30+ more national and internationally touring acts. Local favorites include, but aren’t limited to The Hails, Xperimento, Afrobeta, The Ries Brothers, Kathy Palma, Yoli Mayor and more.
“When it comes to most cross-genre large-scale festivals, festival goers have been there, done that. Nothing phases them anymore, the lineups all look the same with repeat headliners on stages with art as an afterthought. Coming out of Covid, fans are HUNGRY for live music, but I also think they’re also hungry for a carefully curated artistic experience to meet and connect with others. There are valid safety hesitations, location hassles, logistical concerns and a lack of acknowledging social issues. We’re in a post Me Too and BLM world and so much music was created by underrepresented entities who don’t get the credit they deserve. RETROSPEKT is a micro-festival that leads with creativity and inclusion. We’re targeting superfans while simultaneously tapping into an unmet need in the market. The micro festival aims to feel exclusive in person with a small (1K/day) capacity but is inclusive by design and principle as it will be live streamed across the world” said Lauren Kashuk, Founder and Creative Director of Ideaison, the producers, promoters, and creators of RETROSPEKT.
Outside of more than 50 sets across three stages, there will be a hyper focus on immersive and theatrical art. The names of the stages: the past, present and future, will come to life designed as their entities—the live streams will look like music videos with the fans in the action. Fans on-site will be offered ancillary experiences including a retrospective zone at the past stage, by the nonprofit To Write Love on Her Arms, a Drag Queen Brunch curated by House of Yes’s Resident Artist Madame Vivien V, mezcal tastings, aerialist and circus performances by Aerial Dragons, a Florida based aerial entertainment group, a cereal and cartoon bar curated by illustrator Joe Palec and more.
“One thing you will notice,” Kashuk continues, “our festival and lineup is rich in diversity. The problem with the quest to be more “diverse” rests in and with the key decision-maker. If there isn’t a woman or someone diverse at the leadership level, inclusion is viewed as an afterthought. It’s viewed as a checkmark when the day-to-day culture and bias go unaffected. The team, the vision, will not be built in a way that honors all as equal. Underrepresented people are excluded from the room where the music is written and produced, ignored when strategizing promotion, and then disregarded or underestimated as headliners. We’re not down with that. The industry must move from agonizing over the numbers and executing and expanding upon a new path. Taking a chance as talent on RETROSPEKT with a mission, like ours, allows talent/managers/agents and partners alike to take real and concrete steps to address bias and ensure access for the talent to the opportunities that remain closed to them. Even my team, unless we put ourselves in positions of power, as women, or underrepresented entities, we aren’t seen as capable of decision-making. Unless we decide we can produce a music festival on our own, and fund and fundraise it with others like us, along with booking the talent, we won't be seen as competent to do so.”
For the lineup of artists, fans can visit the RETROSPEKT website or Instagram page for more information and updates on the festival.
Limited 2-day and single-day tickets and hotel packages are on sale on the website.
