During 2020 when live music was at a standstill, Shavonne Dargan took the time to reflect on the deficits and opportunities across Live Nation’s businesses. These reflections resulted in her founding CURATED by Live Nation, which bridges Live Nation’s Black-founded festivals with the resources available to them to increase sponsorship revenue.
“Live Nation has a Black founder consortium — so Live Nation, Urban, Dreamville, Festival, Femme it Forward — and those groups and teams of people were not as connected to all the resources that exist within the division that we work in,” the senior vice president of strategy & marketing said. “Lightbulb moment, I was like, ‘Hey, we can be the bridge, we can be that team that make sure that the resources are being delivered to our Black founders.’
Dargan and Soukee Van Orden, who serves as strategic partnerships & operations lead, formed CURATED to develop strategic partnerships that center authentic Black and multicultural influences. The two sat down to discuss CURATED’s mission and progress in the Variety Studio, presented by Canva, at Advertising Week.
Dargan said Van Orden, being from a younger generation than her, has “her ears to the ground” when it comes to generating ideas. After brainstorming, they emerged with various properties for CURATED to focus on.
“One was focused on queer communities of color, especially coming out of COVID and the shutdown of many things,” Dargan said. “And then we developed another platform that is called Rooted in Country, and it is really about the origins of the music and how Black musicians really helped lay the foundation for country music.”
One way CURATED fulfills these missions is through putting on festivals, as well as other types of event series. “We’re constantly thinking outside of the box and trying to develop new ways of working together and new ways to bring Black audiences great things,” Van Orden said.
CURATED helps guide brand partners in understanding the nuances within the various properties across their portfolios.
“Each one of those properties has its own identity, and then there’s a culture within, and then when you look at Black audience and Black-founded festivals, there’s an additional layer of nuance,” Dargan said. “A lot of what we’ve been doing is a little bit of redirecting and guiding in that nuance to how to communicate with Black audiences.”
For Van Orden, staying on top of the interests and passions of their fans will continue to be a priority in CURATED’s future.
“Our fans, particularly our Black fans, are creating community through music … We’re seeing a lot of these different collectives focused around subcultures and music popping up everywhere,” Van Orden said. “These collectives are, no matter what’s happening in the world, they are constantly growing and gravitating, pulling people into family and into closeness, regardless. So that’s something that I’m just very passionate about and want to see how it moves us and our work.”
