Ricky Martin is ready for a little iHeart action…
The 42-year-old Puerto Rican singer has been named one of the performers at iHeartMedia’s first-ever Latin mega concert.
The iHeartRadio Fiesta Latina will take place at the Forum in Los Angeles on Saturday, November 22, with a high-octane performance from Martin, as well as Daddy Yankee, Roberto Tapia, Alejandra Guzmán, La Original Banda el Limón feat. Voz a Voz and Jesse & Joy.
The event will be co-produced by iHeartMedia and Live Nation.
The iHeartRadio Fiesta Latina will be the newest of iHeartMedia’s multi-act concert events, modeled after the iHeartRadio Music Festival, the iHeartRadio Ultimate Pool Party, the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Concert Tour and the iHeartRadio Country Festival.
But in a twist, the inaugural Latin concert is taking place in the same city and the same date as Calibash, the big radio festival that Latin radio network giant SBS has produced for the past seven years.
As it has for the past several years, Calibash will take place at the Staples Center, also on Nov. 22, and is co-produced by SBS Entertainment together with AEG Live. Calibash is a predominantly urban show, and has sold out at the Staples every year, bringing in between 14,000 and 15,000 people. It’s one of multiple SBS mega concerts around the country, including the recent “Megatón” which took place at Madison Square Garden in New York last month.
IHeartMedia has a history of launching new events to compete with existing events. The iHeartRadio Awards, for example, premiered May 1, less than three weeks ahead of the Billboard Music Awards. But launching the same day as the competition may be a first, particularly for a niche genre like Latin.
“IHeartMedia’s Spanish and English radio stations reach 93 percent of the Hispanic population in the U.S. — more than any other media company — and our listeners have been asking for a show like this for a while,” says Tom Poleman, iHeartMedia’s president of National Programming Platforms, in a statement.
Despite iHeartMedia’s huge reach, the company has only 20 Spanish-language radio stations, none of them in Los Angeles.
Beginning on Oct. 2, iHeartMedia will launch a four-week nationwide promotion to give fans the opportunity to win a trip to the festival. The promotion will run on iHeart’s Spanish language stations and on key iHeartRadio markets. Tickets will go on sale Oct. 11.
The Latin music festival market also features major multi-artist concerts by many Latin radio networks, including Univision Radio, which produces its Uforia Music Festival in Los Angeles in the summer.
