YouTube recently teamed up with Billboard to bring some live tunes to an otherwise visual arts-focused Sundance Film Festival. Hit artists Hoodie Allen and Iggy Azalea took to the stage at Billboard Winterfest at Park City Live on January 24, 2015.
The performance kicked off with Justine Ezarik (known as iJustine to the online video masses), the night’s master of ceremonies and Billboard’s official Sundance correspondent, introducing New York-based Allen. The hip-hop artist who used to work at Google before jump-starting music his career on YouTube and racking up over 480,000 subscribers put on an impressive show, which got the audience revved up for the rest of the evening.
Azalea appeared next and managed to get all the venue’s attendees on their feet dancing. That’s no surprise considering Azalea boasts more than 2.6 million subscribers on her Vevo YouTube channel and her music video “Fancy” was dubbed the most-watched music video in 2014.
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Other YouTubers made it to Sundance, too, but not necessarily for musical purposes. Burnie Burns from Rooster Teeth was joined by Indiegogo’s Marc Hofstatter to discuss crowdfunding, and the Fine Bros. talked about their ReactToThat Nickelodeon series on a panel focused on forging new pathways to traditional Hollywood fame. Bernie Su, PESfilm, Yulin Kuang, and Flula Borg were also touting their creative projects and experiences at various Sundance panels and events.
You can catch many of Billboard and YouTube’s Sundance initiatives on Billboard’s channel or via its website.