ESSENCE Festival 2017 Was Bigger, Better & More Woke Than Ever
And Brooklyn surely represented!
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by Brooklyn! If you haven’t experienced ESSENCE Festival in a while, or have never travelled to New Orléans, Louisiana (NOLA) for this liberating 4th of July weekend celebration, seriously plan on attending next year. Start your ESSENCEFest savings account today by putting away at least five dollars every day. You don’t want to miss out on what’s always a phenomenal event.
The 23rd annual ESSENCE Festival presented by CocaCola with major sponsors At&T, Ford, McDonald’s, State Farm, and Walmart took place from June 29 to July 2, 2017. More than 470,000 attendees from around the world, packed the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center during the day. They participated in free empowerment discussions, fashion demonstrations, entrepreneur and business conferences, art exhibits, movie screenings, and the beauty & style expo. They ate sumptuous Cajun food, supported artistically creative vendors, met their favorite celebs at the Fan Zone, and received lots of useful giveaways. At night they partied at the Mercedes-Benz SuperDome to an impressive line-up of celebrities in concert, including The Boss-Diana Ross, John Legend, Xscape, Monica, Jazmine Sullivan, Jill Scott, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan, Solange, and Chance the Rapper.
It all started in 1995. ESSENCEFest began as a celebration of ESSENCE magazine’s 25th anniversary. The event was so overwhelmingly successful, ESSENCE has organized the Festival every year since then. The focus for this year’s ESSENCEFest was to encourage, inspire, and empower participants to become change agent in a world desperately in need of change.
“It is with a fierce sense of urgency that we are using our festival platform to spark important and very necessary conversation,” proclaimed Vanessa K. De Luca, ESSENCE Editor in Chief.
This year ESSENCE created #WokeWonderland as the realization of a collective dream for positive change. ESSENCE awarded its first two WOKE Women Awards to director, screenwriter, and film marketer, Ava Marie DuVernay and artist, freedom fighter, and co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Collurs.
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Throughout the weekend, several presenters stressed the importance of self care. It’s impossible to cure the world of its ill, if you are sick. In order to affect change, one must invest in self by maintaining optimum physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. “Fix My Life” coach and keynote speaker, Iyanla Vanzant, who couldn’t attend last year’s festival because of illness said, ” I was afraid of it not working – all I did was work.” She reminded participants to pay attention to everything in their body and find balance.
On Sunday, July 2nd, the last day of the fest, ESSENCE put together a dynamic all star gospel tribute to Grammy award winner and mother of the late, great Witney Houston –Dr. Cissy Houston. Bishop Lester Love and the City of Love along with special appearances by Kim Burrell, Kelly Price, Chante Moore, and Cece Winans turned the ESSENCE Empowerment Experience into a soulful church healing service. All who attended felt the love.
#EssenceFest gets bigger and better with each year. Be part of a cultural tradition you’ll truly enjoy and always remember. To be surrounded by a diverse group of positive people of color partying with a purpose, is transformational.
See you next year!
