Pollstar (06/10/22) Pittman, Sarah

Nightbreed founder Bryant Acosta explains in an interview that Hollywood's inaugural Future Lovers Block Party in June is an opportunity to celebrate Los Angeles' LGBTQ+ community and culture. The event will follow the LA Pride Parade, and host three stages in the Capitol Records and Avalon parking lot. Acosta says organizing such events has "been an awesome opportunity to build not just the brand, but also be able to give [artists], specifically LGBTQ+, women, people of color and just everybody that's an underserved community, a platform ... really it's just all about building community, essentially." He continues that Future Lovers aims to reform Hollywood's historical exclusion of the LGBTQ+ community, with the goal of "to not just be sort of siloed off to one part of the city, but actually expanding." Acosta says ticket sales for the event have been good, recently exceeding 1,200 tickets sold, which is well over 10%, given the size of the production. "I feel like it's the perfect time to kind of come in and say, hey, we're an alternate, grassroots sort of organization," he notes. "We don't have all these ties to big donors and brands that are expecting a certain commercialization of Pride. We're authentic, we're your neighbors, we're your brothers and sisters — it's literally built up by the community that lives in the community."

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