Jonathan Mayers, a co-founder of Superfly Leisure who additionally served as a co-founder of game-changing music festivals like Bonnaroo and Outside Lands, has died, Billboard and a Bonnaroo consultant confirmed to Pitchfork He was 51.
After rising up a brief drive from New York and graduating from Tulane College, in 1995, Mayers immersed himself within the music world by way of work on the storied New Orleans establishments Tipitina’s and Jazz Fest. In 1996, he co-founded the promotion firm Superfly Leisure with Rick Farman, Richard Goodstone, and Kerry Black. The group organized its first live performance—the Meters, Maceo Parker, and Rebirth Brass Band—throughout Mardi Gras, earlier than setting sights on larger concepts.
In 2002, Mayers and his Superfly coworkers launched the inaugural Bonnaroo Music and Arts Pageant, in Manchester, Tennessee. They sought out an open expanse of land on a farm an hour exterior of Nashville, and booked headliners Trey Anastasio (of Phish) and Phil Lesh and Bob Weir (of Grateful Lifeless) to prime the invoice. The 4 co-founders partnered with promoter Ashley Capps of AC Leisure, agent Chip Hooper of Paradigm Expertise Company, and supervisor Coran Capshaw of Purple Mild Administration, and the remainder was historical past. The primary-ever Bonnaroo bought out, and the 70,000-person capability pageant would go on to develop into a recurring success. In a number of years’ time, Bonnaroo wouldn’t solely encourage dozens of music festivals throughout America, but in addition function the blueprint for how one can rethink music festivals within the trendy period underneath tighter restrictions in comparison with the Woodstock period.
Only a few years later, Superfly began Vegoose, an annual Halloween music and humanities pageant, with multi-venue programming throughout Las Vegas in 2005. Mayers partnered with San Francisco’s One other Planet Leisure to launch Outdoors Lands, in Golden Gate Park, in 2008. That multi-genre, multi-day music pageant grew to develop into the most important independently owned music pageant in the US.
Along with beginning different occasions across the nation, just like the comedy-focused pageant Clusterfest in San Francisco in 2017, Mayers additionally turned his consideration towards movie and TV rights holders to start out immersive experiences for followers. By licensing rights from standard exhibits like Buddies, Seinfeld, The Workplace, It’s All the time Sunny in Philadelphia, and extra, Mayers and his group recreated TV units in numerous cities that allowed followers to “step inside” their favourite sequence.
In August 2021, Superfly terminated Mayers’ place on the firm following inside disagreements with the three different co-founders of the leisure firm. The subsequent 12 months, Mayers sued Farman, Goodstone, and Black, accusing them of civil misrepresentation, breach of contract, and fraud over the underestimated worth of his shares in Superfly. In January 2023, a New York decide dismissed the lawsuit. Mayers went on to deal with Core Metropolis Detroit, a brand new venture investing in a music campus for native artists that additionally might host public occasions.
