Jonathan Mayers, a live performance promoter who co-founded the music festivals Bonnaroo and helped create Outdoors Lands as a principal at Superfly Leisure, has died on the age of 51. The reason for dying is as but unknown.
The information arrives because the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Pageant is about to kick off on June 12 with headliner Luke Combs. The three-day musical gathering continues by June 15.
The New York Metropolis native based Superfly Presents as a advertising and occasion firm in 1996 with companions Kerry Black, Rick Farman and Richard Goodstone, co-creating occasions such because the Outdoors Lands Music and Arts Pageant with One other Planet Leisure and Bonnaroo, held on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee since 2002.
Mayers’ first job was working with New Orleans’ legendary Tipitina’s and town’s Jazz Fest. Superfly then went on to stage its first live performance with the Meters, Maceo Parker and Rebirth Brass Band throughout Mardi Gras.
Mayers partnered with AC Leisure’s Ashley Caps, Paradigm agent Chip Hooper and Crimson Gentle supervisor Coran Capshaw to launch Bonnaroo. That includes headliners like Phish’s Trey Anastasio and members of the Grateful Useless and yearly drawing crowds of greater than 70,000, it has change into the mannequin for the fashionable music competition.
Superfly launched Vegoose competition in Las Vegas in 2005, then partnered with One other Planet to launch Outdoors Lands in San Francisco’s fabled Golden Gate Park. In 2017, Mayers partnered with Viacom and Comedy Central to supply a comedy competition dubbed Clusterfest, which included the likes of Kevin Hart, Amy Schumer, Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah.
Mayers’ progressive promotion method included recreating units from iconic TV reveals like Seinfeld, The Workplace and The Every day Present providing immersive fan experiences, together with a Buddies pop-up of the long-lasting set in New York, Boston and Atlanta.
Mayers left Superfly in August 2021 and sued his ex-partners in early 2022, accusing them of breach of contract and fraud for underestimating the worth of his possession within the firm. The lawsuit was dismissed in January 2023.
Since leaving Superfly, Mayers labored on Core Metropolis Detroit, a challenge which sought funds to put money into the interior metropolis, making a music campus with leisure experiences for the general public.
His longtime pal, Dayglo Presents and Brooklyn Bowl founder Peter Shapiro, advised The Hollywood Reporter: “Individuals use the phrase visionary lots in our enterprise however Jonathan Mayers was the actual deal when it got here to imagining what one thing new may very well be. It takes braveness to lean into doing one thing that might crash and fail. And that’s how Jonathan Mayers broke down actual obstacles and created some subsequent degree music festivals that impacted a technology of followers, bands and promoters.”
One other Planet Leisure issued an announcement describing Mayers as “a vivid mild, all the time pushing new and inventive concepts within the leisure house. Everybody within the One other Planet household will miss him dearly.”