Acrisure Arena, a $300 million, 11,000-capacity venue in Southern California's Coachella Valley, officially opened on December 14, 2022. In addition to hosting the biggest entertainment acts in the world, the arena will drive transformational change by providing a platform to highlight social innovators tackling society's toughest issues.

For generations, American entertainers and sports icons have been catalysts for change. With Stand Together as the exclusive Social Impact Partner, Acrisure Arena will host events and programs that give musicians, athletes, comedians, and their fans an opportunity to make a difference on issues that matter most to them – from addiction to criminal justice, second chance hiring, education, and poverty.

Stand Together CEO Brian Hooks also recently sat down with SPIN to discuss how this arena is much more than a performance center, it is a space for the community to come together to innovate solutions to a variety of problems people in the community are facing.

"Second-chance hiring is a great example," said Stand Together CEO Brian Hooks. "The arena will show the country that people who are returning from prison have a lot of valuable skills to offer to help companies and the communities that businesses exist within."

The arena will provide dedicated sober spaces for people who want to enjoy a substance-free entertainment experience. Stand Together will highlight programs like The Phoenix that focus on discovering and developing people's strengths and addressing their addictions. Programs like these have a much higher success rate, Hooks told SPIN.

"[P]eople in the music industry have a lot of experience with losing people to addiction," Hooks told SPIN. "So there's real passion on the part of a lot of artists and folks in the industry."

Acrisure Arena is expected to attract more than one million visitors annually, bringing year-round sports, music, and family events to the region.

When Stand Together's partnership with Acrisure Arena launched in May, Hooks said, "It's hard to think of movements for change without the songs that inspired and sustained them. That's why Stand Together is committed to partnering with musicians and the country's most effective changemakers to tackle the root causes of our society's biggest challenges."

On opening night at Acrisure Arena, Stand Together, and FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), a civil liberties group focused on free speech and empowering diverse voices to discuss and solve the challenges our communities face, hosted an impact activation that enabled fans to memorialize and share their experience via a photobooth.  

In a recent SPIN interview, FIRE Executive Vice President Nico Perrino discussed how free speech is essential for positive societal change. Perrino said, "Free speech is the ability to be who we are and speak our minds. It's essential for the democratic process, peace, creative and artistic expression, innovation, and prosperity. … To the extent you limit conversations in a democracy, you're limiting people's ability to participate in the democratic process."

Read Brian Hooks' full interview with SPIN. Read SPIN 's story about FIRE's impact activation.

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