Something for the Heart & Soul

Something for the Heart & Soul Kent Area (OH) Chapter, The Links, Incorporated × AARP × American Heart Association × Live Nation

Location: Blossom Music Center Role: Producer, Event Producer Category: Civic Wellness Activation, Concert Experience Production Launch: 2024

The Brief

The Kent Area Chapter of The Links, Incorporated had a concert. Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire, the Heart & Soul Tour, both bands on stage for the encore, the kind of night that sells itself. What it didn't have yet was a reason for that night to also move the needle on heart health in a community where the statistics on cardiovascular disease are not exactly a secret.

The brief was to build an experience that could sit next to a Live Nation concert without feeling like it wandered in from a health fair. Screenings, education, relaxation, all of it had to hold its own against Earth, Wind & Fire.

The Work

As Producer, I built the health and wellness activation that ran alongside the concert:

Structured the Heart Health Canopy with quick screenings and one-on-one conversations, positioned so a concertgoer could get a blood pressure check on the way to their seat without breaking stride

Designed the Wellness Canopy experience, juices, smoothies, heart-healthy bites, chair massage, aromatherapy, and curated wellness gift bags stocked with heart-healthy snacks and mindfulness tools

Produced the Relaxation Zone, a tented aromatherapy and massage space, and a separate Cocktails & Chat lounge for the kind of low-key mingling that actually gets people talking about their health

Secured and coordinated the sponsor architecture: AARP behind the concert experience itself, the American Heart Association behind the Heart Care Canopy, and Summit County's own Ilene Shapiro backing the Wellness Canopy

Managed the full site plan, tents, seating, foot traffic, screening stations, so the wellness footprint worked with the venue rather than around it

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The Translation

Getting a health fair to hold up next to a stadium act is a spatial problem before it's a programming one. Nobody walks past a folding table with a blood pressure cuff on it if the folding table looks like a folding table. So the canopy had to look like it belonged at the same event as the leopard-print stage jackets, warm lighting, real furniture, a massage chair that looked like a spa borrowed it, not a clinic loaned it out.

The bigger move was refusing to treat wellness as the thing you tolerate before the music starts. Heart health, chair massage, and Earth, Wind & Fire got equal billing on purpose. People show up for the concert. They stay for the blood pressure check because the tent next to it smelled like lavender and had somewhere comfortable to sit.

The Outcome

An arts and entertainment audience, arguably not the group most likely to seek out a cardiology screening on a Tuesday, got one anyway, wrapped in candlelight and a Chicago horn section. The Kent Area Chapter turned a single concert night into a genuine community health touchpoint, with AARP, the American Heart Association, and Summit County leadership all standing behind the same tent flap. Book the band. Build the tent next door well enough, and the tent does the harder work.

Case study prepared by Delanie West, MBA — Founding Principal, Be Super Creative