What Provokes You?
A3C Festival: Make Your Own Mark
his past October I had the pleasure of attending the A3C festival held in Atlanta,Georgia. A3C is the largest hip-hop festival and conference in the US. This is the 9th year of the festival and it continues to grow and include international artist. Bringing together every level of the genre and spanning over a week, A3C has been described as “Hip Hop Disneyland” or “ Hip Hop Family Reunion”. Seminars, concerts, mixers, parties and various promo events take over the city.
The Melia Hotel served as the festivals main hub and events were spread across the downtown ATL area. Unlike many other music festivals, the events schedule was pretty structured. Most panels, interviews, and radio shows took place in the morning from 8am until 3pm, leaving the rest of the day for A3C official showcases. A3C was no place for late sleepers! A lot of attendees and artist spent their time gaining knowledge in panels and networking all over the city.
Desiree Yearby
Reporter/Writer
I'm a team member. I'm a great place to list my job title and introduce me so your customers can get to know me. Double click me to change me and add your own content. To customize me and change my font go to the Design panel.
info@mysite.com
T
I know a lot of people wonder if A3C is the right place for them as an artist. A3C is the type of festival that will allow you to make whatever impact it is you want to make in your career. The festival allows you to gain knowledge from people in the industry that would charge you a pretty penny for the same advice. During my time at A3C, I attended panels such as “The Importance of the Internet for Artists” with Wendy Day and “Digital Distribution: Getting Your Music Videos, Mix-tapes, Short Films and Web Series on TV”. There were also panels on fashion, building “buzz”,artist management, getting your music in video games and much more. A3C is a place where well-known acts such as TDE could bump into lesser known artist on the rise, not to mention the hundreds of appearances you could catch just hanging at the Melia., I was able to see all kinds of different acts such as (Crunchy black, Pharoah Monch, Jean Grae and Skyzoo) and watched the local ATL hip-hop scene integrate with the bigger names of the festival.
So, yes you should go to A3C. It was great a breath of fresh air. Nothing is exclusive about it like other festivals and conferences, all the information and concerts were available to everyone. Mix the hectic-ness that a music festivals usually brings with the slow and southern ways of ATL residents and you have a match made in hip-hop heaven.