Field Day: Building a Three-Day Festival on Federal Ground
The Brief & Scale
Co-founded and executive-produced Field Day, a three-day multidisciplinary festival on the Kennedy Center's REACH campus, running across two consecutive years at 3,000+ attendees a year. Built inside a Cultural Leader in Residence appointment with the Center's Social Impact team.
Production Scope
Held the $100k+ festival P&L with direct signing authority, directed a twelve-person production team, and contracted 50+ musicians, filmmakers, visual artists and vendors. Brought Topo Chico in as the festival's corporate sponsor and made the film that carried the partnership.
The Operational Challenge
The REACH campus is federal ground. Every vendor, every structure and every piece of commercial branding required landmark approval, and the Kennedy Center had never placed a corporate sponsor's product on the site before. The festival had to clear federal site regulation without becoming a corporate event.
Made for Topo Chico as part of the festival sponsorship. Three days seen through the brand: guitars on the grass, cornhole and picnic tables, vendor stalls, a bottle in nearly every frame, all of it on the Kennedy Center's ground.
Programming a Federal Campus
Booked and contracted 50+ musicians, filmmakers and visual artists across three days, alongside a short film competition, panel discussions and interactive community installations.
Programmed a Questlove documentary screening that reached a national audience, a regional photography exhibition, live industry panels, and a $2,000 film grant awarded to an emerging creator under thirty.
Walked commercial brand placement, a regional streetwear marketplace and a three-day takeover of the Kennedy Center's digital channels through landmark approval on federal ground.
Managed budgets and vendor contracts end to end, distributing artist payouts and reconciling billing on the festival's own timeline.
Two Years, Three Days, One Campus
- A first corporate cultural sponsorship. Negotiated and closed a $20,000 Topo Chico partnership, the first of its kind on the campus, then built the whole distribution side of it: product placement across live activations, a three-day takeover of the Center's social channels, livestreamed screenings, and the sponsorship film above.
- Direct budget authority. Institutional leadership released funding allocations to be administered outside the standard approval chain, which meant artist and vendor payouts and billing reconciliation ran on the festival's own timeline rather than the Center's.
- Money back into the room. Every commercial dollar was paired with a direct payout to a creator: a $2,000 grant to a filmmaker under thirty, a regional streetwear marketplace taking its own margin, and fifty-plus artists contracted and paid.