Kaaboo Festival Acquired by Virgin Fest Owner Jason Felts
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Kaaboo, which says it has “shifted the music festival paradigm by offering a highly amenitized festival experience for adults,” is now under new ownership. Virgin Fest founder and CEO Jason Felts (pictured above with Virgin founder Richard Branson) has fully acquired all of the festival brand assets through an affiliate of Virgin Fest, the music festival arm of the Virgin brand. Felts formerly served as a partner and chief brand officer at Kaaboo; the announcement stressed that the event will not be rebranded.
Founded by Bryan Gordon and Seth Wolkov, Kaaboo began with its flagship property Kaaboo Del Mar in 2015 and has expanded to the Caribbean (Kaaboo Cayman) and the Dallas/Ft. Worth area (Kaaboo Texas). The announcement comes after the Del Mar event’s fifth anniversary weekend, and the news that the Southern California festival will now be known as Kaaboo San Diego and will be relocating to Petco Park next year.
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“I attended the first Kaaboo Del Mar in 2015 with my parents,” shares Jason Felts, “given it was the inaugural year, the attendance was low, however it became very clear to me that the vision was truly unique. It also became clear that Kaaboo shared a like-minded approach to Virgin with customer service, while delivering a unique, differentiated, multi-sensory festival product. That, of course, is a testament to the Founders’ initial vision supported by an extremely talented team of professionals who executed upon that vision.”
“We’re thrilled and delighted to have had this unique vision and grateful having spent the last six years of our lives only to be validated by this acquisition with such an experienced and progressive team,” says Kaaboo co-founders Bryan Gordon and Seth Wolkov. “We’ve been delighted to entertain hundreds of thousands of live entertainment fans.”
The acquisition was brokered and negotiated on behalf of Virgin Fest by a team at Latham & Watkins LLP, led by partner Ken Deutsch.
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