A 3-day virtual music festival and fundraiser, presented by YouTube Music in partnership with the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA). This festival raised over $1M in private and corporate donations, providing critical support to independent venues that were severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to the combined efforts of Save Our Stages Fest and NIVA's lobbying and grassroots efforts, the bipartisan Save Our Stages Act, now known as the Shuttered Venues Operators Grant Program, was successfully passed and signed into law as part of the second COVID-19 Relief Bill on December 27, 2020. This program allocated $16 billion in federal emergency relief through the Small Business Administration, saving the live music industry from mass collapse.

To support the festival and drive viewership, we created a series of captivating films that celebrated the vast impact of independent venues on the music industry. Our main anthem film, "A Tribute to Independent Venues," narrated by Neil Young, featured a collection of archived footage from iconic artists such as Bob Marley, Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, Iggy Pop, Foo Fighters, Beastie Boys, The Doors, and more. This was followed by Folklore, a series of short films sharing the unsung stories of America’s independent venues through the memories of influential storytellers. Slash shares his life-long relationship attending, playing, and returning to The Troubadour for a Guns N ’Roses reunion tour. Donna Westmoreland, COO of I.M.P. shares how 9:30’s proximity to the nation’s capital helped define its activist roots. Shannon Powell shares his story of a childhood spent learning from New Orleans’ jazz giants at Preservation Hall.