Earlier this year, more than 100,000 New Yorkers lined up to honor the dead and bear witness to the largest terror attack ever perpetrated at a live music celebration. The Nova music festival, whose fateful Oct. 7, 2023, gathering saw the killing of at least 360 attendees by Hamas and more than 40 taken hostage, is now inextricably linked to the broader ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
A group of activists and creatives wanted to send a clear message in the months that followed: “We will dance again.” So reads a neon sign at the “Nova Exhibition,” an interactive memorial to the musical gathering that took place that day. After a successful run on the East Coast, the exhibit opens on Aug. 17 in Culver City. (A specific location has not yet been disclosed in the interest of security.)
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Omri Sassi, Yoni Feingold, Ofir Amir and Yagil Rimoni conceived the installation, which was directed by Reut Feingold and originally mounted in Tel Aviv. For the exhibit’s third outing, partners including Scooter Braun, Joe Teplow and Josh Kadden are helping the project find footing in the Hollywood community.
“Music brings us together. It is not a tool that divides us,” says Braun, former manager to Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. “We must acknowledge the victims of Nova as a way to help us see each other’s humanity. Our hope is that opening in L.A. gives an opportunity for people of all views and communities to come together as one.”
Visitors will walk through a recreation of the festival grounds. Personal belongings left behind, a ravaged camping area, rebuilt stages and portable restrooms pierced with bullet holes will be on display. Smartphones will be plugged in all around the floors, each containing stories of the attack. Photo commemorations and a space to offer written condolences will also be mounted.
Kadden was working a steady tech job and holding down another full-time gig when the attack against the Nova festival was carried out. The tragedy upended his life, he tellsPvNew, and he’s since devoted all of his time to telling survivor stories and maintaining a larger conversation about healing.
“The idea is to acknowledge this, the largest massacre in music history,” Kadden says. “In a place like Los Angeles, where storytellers are exploring this — whether it’s behind a soundboard producing an album, thinking about a movie or a TV show — this will hopefully enter everyone’s subconscious. The idea of hope.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and David Banks, chancellor of the city’s public schools, all turned up for Nova during its most recent run. Organizers are banking on a similar showing from thought leaders and artists in Southern California. To that end, Kadden and the “Nova Exhibition” team took a road show to the major talent agencies and select content shops, and several documentaries about the Nova festival are already in the works.
Security was the most expensive line item on the Nova L.A. budget, Kadden says, and was funded by donations. The exhibit lands at a moment when live event producers are particularly on edge. Taylor Swift was forced to cancel three performances in Vienna scheduled for last week when Austrian intelligence thwarted a terror plot from young men acting in the name of ISIS, according to reports. In New York, the “Nova Exhibition” drew hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters, who were later condemned by Adams.
“I want to make sure that our impact in L.A. lasts longer than the exhibit itself. We’re thinking about working with the public school systems here on curriculum around the Nova exhibit and the larger Nova story,” Kadden says. “Where teachers can responsibly explore what happened this day.”
