The world’s largest music company is expanding voting volume.
With concert halls across the country stifled by the pandemic, Live Nation will release a series of projects for the election season on Wednesday, adding plans for several of those venues in polling stations in November.
Live Nation, owner of Ticketmaster, has partnered with the LeBron more Than a Vote organization, which has effectively included more than 20 sports stadiums in a campaign.
In Detroit, this may mean Live Nation services, such as Fillmore and St. Andrew’s Hall, they’re voting as destinations this fall.
Live Nation owns or operates about 110 sites in the United States and is quietly operating this month with city officials across the country to coordinate plans.
The company hopes its efforts can help fill a gap in jurisdictions where classical polling stations are offline due to security considerations due to the pandemic. Many of them are located in cities where Live Nation’s medium-sized venues, theaters and clubs can accommodate greater social distance.
The company will announce Wednesday that Live Nation sites in Los Angeles (Wiltern and Hollywood Palladium), Philadelphia (Fillmore), Atlanta (Buckhead Theatre) and Austin (Emo) will be shown as polling places. Markets.
“One of the things we hear all the time, as the pandemic continues, is that many smaller (voting stations) wouldn’t have to vote,” said Tom See, chief operating officer of Live Nation’s U. S. site department. “We said, “Wait a second, we have over a hundred primary branches across the country that are empty right now. Why not propose them as polling places?” It’s the impulse: solving a need. “
Show spaces in major U. S. cities are in the middle of the world. But it’s not the first time They have been closed since March, and the transformation into polling stations will take place at a time when those music halls would have plunged into their historically autumn and winter concert seasons.
“Live Nation has taken the microphone by offering our network face-to-face voting reports in two iconic concert halls,” Said Dean Logan, Registrar/Secretary of Los Angeles County, in a statement. “They are collaborations like this that demonstrate the spirit of network participation and the strength of our democracy. “
See said the crusade launch is a kind of bat signal, which lets communities know that the company is being made to talk.
“We inspire jurisdictions to touch us and paint in combination very temporarily to see if our sites satisfy the wishes of this local community,” he said. “They’re all a little different, but it doesn’t stop knocking on the door and seeing if we can help them. “
Live Nation officials say they expect their crusade to increase awareness that many music services can be activated as safe polling stations, leading local officials to places even beyond the company’s own stable.
To address the national shortage of election workers, Live Nation offers its active workers a day of paid leave to serve in polling stations. The company will use its social media channels and fan databases to inspire the public to do the same, while advocating for voting messages with the slogan “Amplify your voice”.
Live Nation has partnered with several organizations, adding Civic Alliance, HeadCount and More Than a Vote, an organization formed this summer through James and other black athletes and artists for voting rights and access to the polls before the November election.
On the entertainment front, the band’s rapper Offset, comedian Kevin Hart and singer Toni Braxton.
More than one vote has led more than 20 sports stadiums to sign up for Election Day activity in November, and discussions continue in other markets. The group’s bipartisan advisory board is led by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
The Detroit Pistons, among the first franchises to commit, will turn their new Midtown exercise center into a polling station, while Little Caesars Arena will be deployed to exercise election workers. The Detroit Lions Ford Field will be used as a polling station.
More than a vote cast when it has become transparent that COVID-19 expands access to existing ballot boxes in black communities, said Michael Tyler, the group’s executive vice president of public affairs.
“Like the sports stadiums that have been on board, the concert halls have a stamp that can inspire the electorate to come forward,” Tyler said. Their locations are also widely known, located in urban centers and available via public transportation, he said.
“For us, it’s a solution not only to vote during a pandemic,” Tyler said. “We hope that this will become a permanent component of voting infrastructure in the future. “
Contact Detroit Music Free Press Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress. com.