The Essence Music Festival, known as "the party with a purpose," is an annual music festival which started in 1995 as a one-time event to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of ESSENCE, a magazine aimed primarily towards African-American women. It is the largest event celebrating African-American culture and music in the United States. Locally referred to as the Essence Fest, it has been held in New Orleans, Louisiana every year since 1995 except for 2006, where it was held in Houston, Texas due to Hurricane Katrina. It features artists simultaneously performing on a main stage as well as four standing-room only superlounge stages.
In 2008, for the first time since its 1995 inception, the festival was not produced by the original producer team. Instead, Essence Communications, owner of the festival and the Essence magazine, contracted Rehage Entertainment Inc., to help reinvigorate the festival's presentation and marketing. A new main stage facelift was designed by production designer Stefan Beese and instituted by the new regime at Essence Communications & Rehage Entertainment.
Traxx Girls Inc. has partnered with Studfish Productions to offset the first annual Essence Weekend for Ladies Edition of Essence Music Festival by hosting events for the alternative lifestyle women who enjoy attending Essence Music Festival weekend, but want to attend events that cater to alternative women.
Famous quotes containing the words essence, music and/or festival:
“... that’s what living happens to be ... the physiological denial of reverence and good manners and Christianity.... At your age one’s quite old enough to know what the essence of life really is. Shamelessness, that’s all; pure shamelessness.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The train was crammed, the heat stifling. We feel out of sorts, but do not quite know if we are hungry or drowsy. But when we have fed and slept, life will regain its looks, and the American instruments will make music in the merry cafe described by our friend Lange. And then, sometime later, we die.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)