Conventional wisdom says getting down on a dance floor can be a healing experience. In this case, that’s literally true.  

In the spring of 2011, Teddy Raskin was a sophomore at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Student life was treating him and his friends well until a close buddy of his, Luke (who requested his last name not be used to protect his privacy), broke his neck in a boating accident after jumping off and hitting a sandbar, fracturing two vertebrae.  

The friend group was devastated by the accident. The good news was that with rehabilitation, Luke could relearn how to walk. The problem was that the machine he needed to do it cost $90,000 and wasn’t covered by insurance. But Raskin saw a way to make it happen: a splashy dance set on the campus lawn.

“Instead of just asking people for money for this machine,” says Raskin. “I thought we could put on a concert to raise the money and do it in the spirit emblematic of Luke, ourselves and the University and turn tragedy into a celebration of life.”

Raskin had already been hosting events around town and had always wanted to put on a dance show in Nashville, a city not necessarily known as an electronic music hotbed, especially in 2012.

So he started hustling, asking fraternities at the school to each pitch in between $500 and $1,000 for the event and also agree to not throw their own party on a fall Friday night set aside for the show. While Raskin says Vanderbilt was “a bit terrified” about letting a bunch of fraternity brothers throw a dance show on the Alumni Lawn, the chancellor and other officials ultimately agreed to let it happen, even making it possible to purchase tickets through student ID cards.

Meanwhile, through friends of friends, Raskin made connections at the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which focuses on curing spinal cord injuries. 

They just needed a DJ. Raskin’s sister worked in the mail room at WME, and a good friend worked at NUE agency. With their help, he reached out to agents. “I was asking for Afrojack for like, $10,000 and Swedish House Mafia for $20,000,” he says. “These agents were like, ‘Did you leave a zero off the offer letter?’”

Ultimately, the house duo White Panda signed on to play. On Oct. 18, 2012, more than 1,500 students gathered on the Alumni Lawn to see them play, with the show making $96,000 through ticket sales and donations. Within the year, Luke was walking again.

With this, Lights on the Lawn was born. Taking place each year since that 2012 debut, the show is now a staple of the Vanderbilt events calendar. Over the years, it’s hosted marquee dance acts including The Chainsmokers, Diplo, Afrojack, Oliver Heldens, Two Friends, Loud Luxury and Louis the Child, simultaneously expanding to become a training program that teaches student organizers from Vanderbilt the ins and outs of the live events industry. 

This year’s Lights on the Lawn happens tomorrow (Sept. 27) with headliner Gryffin, who was originally one half of White Panda and has since gone on to have a massive solo career. The lead up to the show now includes Lecture on the Lawn, which this year featured execs including Kris Lamb of Big Machine, Az Cohen of 300 Entertainment and Alessi Nehr Alessi Nair, the general manager of Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheatre speaking to students about getting into the business.  

More than 500 students have gone through the program, with many of them getting jobs at Live Nation, Wasserman, WME, CAA and Spotify, along with banking firms like McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.  

“Vanderbilt’s a very competitive university,” says Raskin. “If someone’s passionate about music, this gives them a path to [learn about] producing, promoting, marketing, putting on an educational series, then going to get a job at one of these places.” 

With the original need that inspired Lights on the Lawn solved with the first show, in 2013 the event started sending 100% of its profits to East Nashville’s Mary Parrish Center, which provides domestic abuse survivors short- and long-term housing. The organization was chosen in the wake of a case that rocked the Vanderbilt campus in 2013, when four football players were accused of raping a student, which ultimately resulted in each of them being sentenced to prison time.  

Donations over the first three years made it possible for the Mary Parrish team to purchase the building they’d been renting. “This was in 2015, right before things started getting insane as far as the cost of housing in Nashville,” says the Mary Parrish Center’s executive director Mary Katherine Rand. “It was such a gift that we were able to purchase it at that time.” The organization, which was founded in 2002, has been able to completely renovate the facility with subsequent donations from Lights on the Lawn. Other donation money has paid salaries for the facility’s resident therapists, with Vanderbilt students also volunteering at the facility. Rand says that annually, Lights on the Lawn is one of the biggest donors to Mary Parrish.  

Over its first 11 years, the event has raised roughly $850,000. And this year, even those who aren’t attending can make donations through the Event’s GoFundMe. 

After graduating from Vanderbilt in 2014, Raskin himself went on to work in the resale department at Ticketmaster for three years, starting in 2017. That year, he thought to ask the company to sponsor Lights on the Lawn, and it was suggested to him that he email Michael Rapino directly to ask for the money. He did.  

“I didn’t expect a response,” says Raskin. Within 48 hours, however, Rapino wrote back. Raskin can still recite the email word for word.  

“Dear Teddy on behalf of myself and the entire Live Nation family, we’re so proud of you,” the note went. “However, we are in the business of getting partnership checks, not writing them.”  

“My heart went through the floor. I thought I was going to get fired,” Raskin recalls. But Rapino’s email continued.  

“He said, ‘This show is so amazing. We are so happy to support. [COO Mark Campana] will reach out to you, and we will be writing a check for $50,000.”  

The email came through when Raskin was with his parents on the way to a Lady Gaga concert at Wrigley Field. “I started crying in the cab,” Raskin says. The $50,000 sponsorship from Live Nation helped propel Lights on the Lawn to its best year ever, yielding $171,000 in proceeds and driving 2.1 million digital impressions and nearly 4,000 tickets sold.

In terms of music, agencies and DJs have also generally been generous, with artists typically playing for discounted or highly competitive rates. “No one’s out there trying to win over their top offer with us,” says Raskin. “If you’re coming to play Lights on the Lawn you know three things: One, it’s going to be a well-produced, well-attended show. Two, it’s an unbelievably impactful show. And three, you’re not going to get your Lollapalooza booking fee.” 

Raskin, who now lives in New York City and is the CEO at KOACORE, the supply chain company he founded during the pandemic, says he’d love to expand Lights on the Lawn to other college campuses, a move he foresees being beneficial for nationwide charities and student bodies at large.  

“You have all these educational experiences, you have this blowout concert, you raise a bunch of money, you have a sick time, and you get to learn,” says Raskin. “That’s what our deal is.” 

There’s a brand new venue coming to Toronto, and it will be one of the biggest in the country. Rogers Stadium will open in summer 2025. At 50,000 capacity, it will also be one of the biggest venues built specifically for music. Despite the stadium designation, the venue will not be home to a sports team, and will not be open during the winter.

Live Nation Canada announced the stadium this morning (Sept. 26) in a press conference attended by Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who teased each other about bike lanes and traffic congestion while boasting of the economic impact of the new venue in their speeches.

The venue will be located at YZD, on the site of what used to be the Downsview Airport in North Toronto. Bombardier used the land for an air field, air force base and testing base for aircrafts. In 2018, Bombardier sold the facility to Northcrest Developments and will move its operations to Pearson Airport.

The company is redeveloping the land into mixed-use residential communities, a $30B plan that is slated to take 30 years. In the meantime, the 370-acre site, now called YZD, is being used for a variety of arts, community and other initiatives as part of “Meanwhile Use Strategy.”

Rogers Stadium will be located on 44 acres of the former runway. Live Nation, the biggest music and entertainment promoter in the city, says it is building on the demand for stadium-level tours in Toronto, which is one of the biggest concert markets for major touring acts in North America. The company says the venue will be a mix of stadium-scale shows with a “festival experience.”

This article originally appeared in Billboard Canada.

As 50 Cent once rapped, “When It Rains It Pours.” On the heels of continuously trolling Diddy over his arrest, the G-Unit honcho reacted to Eric Adams’ indictment on Thursday (Sept. 26).

With a documentary surrounding Diddy’s allegations already on the way, 50 teased his fans by asking if he should do a separate doc about the NYC mayor’s legal troubles and turbulent tenure.

50 reposted a September 2023 clip of Mayor Adams referring to himself as the “Bad Boy of politics” before presenting Diddy with the Key to New York City, which he rescinded in June following a myriad of lawsuits filed against the Bad Boy CEO.

“This s–t is getting crazy out here! Do you want a docu series on Eric Adams ? I want to know what the fvck is going on here,” he captioned the clip.

Uncle Murda shared a laugh in the comments while 50’s fans seemed to be into the idea. “50 might be the funniest non comedian to ever live I applaud it,” one person wrote.”These documentaries are gonna be fyah,” another added.

According to CNN, Eric Adams was hit with five federal charges of “bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy and soliciting campaign contributions” from foreign parties on Wednesday (Sept. 25). The alleged illegal actions date back to 2014.

“For nearly a decade, Adams sought and accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him,” the indictment reportedly reads.

On Wednesday (Sept. 25), Variety reported that 50 Cent’s Diddy docuseries will be calling Netflix home. The untitled doc will center around Combs’ lawsuits, sexual assault and abuse allegations, but also include his recent federal charges for racketeering and sex trafficking.

50 is onboard as an executive producer through his G-Unit Film & Television division while Alexandria Stapleton is directing. “This is a story with significant human impact. It is a complex narrative spanning decades, not just the headlines or clips seen so far,” 50 and Stapleton relayed in a joint statement to Variety. “We remain steadfast in our commitment to give a voice to the voiceless and to present authentic and nuanced perspectives.”

A spokesperson for 50 Cent previously confirmed to Billboard that proceeds received from the project will go toward helping victims of sexual assault and rape.

Check out 50 Cent’s posts about Eric Adams below:

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