Q&A: L.A. Soul Music Festival founder says this weekend’s inaugural event is just the beginning

Launching a new music festival in Los Angeles is a massive undertaking for any promoter. It’s an even bigger challenge for one that’s new to the city.

Last year that was Mark Douglas. The chief executive of Airborne Tickets had relocated to L.A. after spending two decades in the Bay Area producing and promoting events. Upon his arrival in L.A. he wondered why there weren’t more big-scale events for soul music fans. So he decided to start one.

“There are millions of people in the city, but what [is there] for all the fans of this music?” Douglas said. “Those people don’t go away. I noticed a kind of prevailing mind-set to this particular genre of music. So I thought there might be something people are missing.”

On Friday, Douglas kicks off his inaugural Los Angeles Soul Music Festival. Set for three days at Griffith Park’s Autry Museum of the American West, Douglas booked more than a dozen acts to perform on one stage.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour »

Marsha Ambrosius, Joe, Lalah Hathaway, Jazmine Sullivan, Eric Benét, Melanie Fiona and Angie Stone are among major draws to the outdoor festival that will also feature more than 75 artisan vendors and dozens of food trucks. The festival kicks wraps Sunday night.

Ahead of Friday’s launch, Douglas talked to The Times about the challenges of a new festival and future plans.

R&B and soul music fans have often been underserved when it comes to large-scale events, but this is a city with a robust live music scene. What were the challenges of launching a new festival in a market where there is so much action?

Being a newbie to L.A. and not having learned the flow yet. Dealing with the city itself is a nightmare when you’re trying to pierce the infrastructure. What I found was once you find the right people, the city is incredibly event-friendly.

One big hurdle was, once I paid for the venue and started booking talent, Jazz Fest West announced it was coming back. We ended up being a week apart [the event was last weekend in San Dimas]. They weren’t a part of my consideration at the onset, otherwise I would have picked a different week or month. That was one hiccup and we may have ended up splitting each other’s audience.

Did that worry you?

They weren’t on my radar because they had been dormant. I don’t know how much we have impacted each other, but we’ve done good, we’re solid and in the black, which I’m happy about. I’ve been told that that’s a great accomplishment for a new event.

A few years ago the Balboa Music Festival unsuccessfully attempted to cement itself as a viable soul music event in SoCal. What were things you placed extra emphasis on while planning to ensure success?

Do you know how many calls I got asking me if I was the guy behind it? In our community, technology is not always at the forefront at these types of events. We’ve invested in technology that’s been used at South By Southwest and other places. Our wristbands will be a cashless system. We really wanted to make sure our entry process went well.

When it came to booking acts, was there a narrative you wanted to show in the lineup?

I talked to more than 100 acts and it was a combination of how do you define soul music — it’s not necessarily genre specific. Country music can be really soulful. Instrumental music can be really soulful. Our goal was to take music that really grabs you. We wanted to show the audience something familiar, but also showcase people who have less popularity and less recognition.

The launch of this is the first of a music series, can you talk more about that?

The venue expressed that they are open to us doing multiple events per year, so we are going to figure out how many events the venue will tolerate, and really how many events the market can tolerate of this genre.

The festival will be an anchor event. There’s a lot of great soul music out there that’s not on BET and MTV and its people with really good music and really good catalogs, so my goal is to bring a couple of big names a year and then stack the deck. It will be a mixture of stuff.

Premium and general admission single-day tickets, starting at $60, are available through the festival’s website.

For more music news follow me on Twitter: @GerrickKennedy