INTERACTIVE ZOOM AUDIENCE
Barbès is a tiny bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with an outsized influence on the creative music scene in NYC. (The venue hosts over 700 performances a year!). In 2019, we launched a Global Music Festival called BARBÈS IN THE WOODS that pays homage to its namesake. This year, COVID came along and made a second outdoor edition impossible. The pandemic is also challenging the bar’s stamina to survive an ongoing crisis in a business with very low profit margins.
So this year, we’re going to throw the best virtual house party to celebrate all of the struggling hole-in-the-wall venues that enrich our lives. The event features Brookyln’s Underground System (a perennial dance floor favorite) and Son Rompe Pera (Cumbia meets punk in Mexico City). Zoom ticket holders will have access to an extended experience with an afterparty by NYC turntable legend, Nickodemus, and a pre-party with Names You Can Trust.
That’s right, buy a ticket (just one per party), invite your pod-people over, bling out your living room/backyard/deck/whatever, and crank up the sound system
SUMMARY
The world has been turned upside down but we continue to make magic. The Millpond.Live summer festivals have been reimagined as a series of residencies that make space for artists to collaborate, generate new work, and reconnect with audiences in creative ways. We come together to celebrate and to rally around issues that touch our lives and shape our communities. Tune in on Saturday nights in August for our live broadcasts from the stage of the historic Academy of Music Theatre.
THE FORMAT
Each week, artists will come for a creative retreat at Valley View Farm, where they will be joined by band members and special guests to rehearse and collaborate safely in open-air spaces. On Fridays, they will perform for an intimate audience outdoors in the Hemenway Barn and on Saturdays, they will take the stage at the historic Academy of Music Theatre for a live streamed broadcast with no physical audience.
INTERACTIVE AUDIENCE
While we can’t come together in the theater, we’ve pioneered the next best thing. Purchase a ticket to join our interactive audience via Zoom, where you get to “be seen” by the artists and “see” everyone else who is sharing the experience with you. We setup a video wall at the front of the stage so that the performers can literally look out at the audience and see hundreds of people listening, dancing, clapping, and enjoying the show. Tickets will be available as a sliding-scale donation and net proceeds will benefit the artists, the venue, as well as our partner organizations.
Laudable Productions pioneered this “interactive audience” format earlier this summer, when we produced “Juneteenth: A Day of Remembrance” with Sweet Honey In The Rock, which was broadcast live from The Lincoln Theater in Washington, DC to an empty hall. Special guests included Bryan Stevenson, Danny Glover, Gina Belafonte, Sonia Sanchez, Debbie Allen, Christian McBride, Aloe Blacc, William Barber III, Kiki Shepard, Jenifer Lewis, Jordan Waré, and Sophia Dawson. One thousand people bought tickets to the interactive Zoom audience and over 100k viewers tuned in to watch the live-streamed show. The event raised over $80k in donations for the Equal Justice Initiative.
Show Date/ Time:
Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 8:00 pm
Doors at 8:00 (online event start time)
Ticket Prices:
$10 to $50 suggested donation
Where/ How Tickets Can be Purchased:
Academy of Music Box Office Open Tuesday- Friday 3:00PM-6:00PM
Call: 413-584-9032 ext.105 (Service fees will apply with purchase)
Online Tickets Not Available
