Every successful production wants one. Every successful production needs one. Every successful production has a Jeff Consoletti.
Jeff is the founder and CEO of JJLA, the Los Angeles-based live event and entertainment agency that has produced WeHo Pride since the City launched its own official celebration in 2022 — and LA Pride before that. He’s the man, the coach if you will, who heads the team that books the talent, builds the show, and has spent the better part of a decade making West Hollywood Park the place the queer community points to every June.
Unicorn Season
Oh, the magic of unicorns — and their season too. That’s what Jeff calls it when he and the team start chasing the dream bookings — the unicorn sure to wow the crowd. The acts and artists Jeff says the community deserves. The ones that make the crowd lose their minds. Some of those unicorns never show. Some take two, three years of groundwork before the timing finally lines up. Consoletti says he’s already deep into unicorn season for 2027 and 2028.
This Pride’s unicorn is a Pussycat Doll
Nicole Scherzinger, Kimberly Wyatt, and Ashley Roberts are in the middle of a 53-date PCD Forever world reunion tour. They bypassed LA arenas. OUTLOUD at West Hollywood Park, June 5 through 7, is their only Los Angeles stop.
“It doesn’t come without months and months of strategy, follow-ups, and relationship building,” Consoletti said.
WeHo Pride Weekend runs June 5 through 7 at West Hollywood Park, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd. The full weekend includes the free Street Fair, Women’s Freedom Festival, Dyke March, WeHo Pride Parade, and the ticketed OUTLOUD Music Festival. Friday Night at OUTLOUD is free to the public with registration at wehopride.com.
Beyond the Pussycat Dolls, the 2026 OUTLOUD lineup includes Ava Max, JADE, Ashlee Simpson, FLO, a DJ set from Melanie C, Blue Man Group, and MNEK, with rising queer artists filling out all three days — Isabella Lovestory, Jae Stephens, Aliyah’s Interlude, LSDXOXO, ALTÉGO, Leland, and flowerovlove among them.
Consoletti called the lineup exactly what he sees happening in music right now. “We’re in the middle of a global pop girl renaissance, and OUTLOUD stands at the center of it all,” he said. “Look at the past 18 months. Charli, Sabrina, Chappell, BLACKPINK, Zara, Jennie, JADE, Lisa, Olivia, Hilary, Cardi. Women are shaping and standing at the forefront of music in impactful, trendsetting, and authentic ways. The LGBTQ+ fan has always stood at the center of driving pop success. What I’m seeing today is synonymous with moments we saw surrounding Madonna, Britney, Mariah, Christina, the Spice Girls, and even a young Gaga almost 20 years ago.”
JADE — the British star who came up through BLACKPINK — gets a specific mention. Consoletti called her the IT Girl of the moment, with a wink. “We curate OUTLOUD to be at the center of LGBTQ culture,” he said. “My entire team and I work in sync to find that perfect mix of nostalgia, fun, surprise, and what we all love right now.”
He’s been doing this since 2010
Consoletti founded JJLA and the company has never really fit a single description. They’ve done fan experiences for Chappell Roan and Mac Miller, brand activations at Sundance and Coachella, film premieres for Sony and Hulu, galas for St. Jude and AIDS Walk LA, the WeHo Ice Rink, MLB All-Star Weekend, the Abbey’s grand reopening, and a traveling Harry Potter Yule Ball, among about a hundred other things. Twenty full-time staff, more than 50 part-time crew, offices in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and Miami. BizBash’s Top 1000. The LA Business Journal’s Disruptor list. BEQ Pride’s 40 Under 40.
None of it was the plan. There wasn’t one.
“One of the best parts of living in LA is that the road you wind up on is very likely not the road where you started,” Consoletti said. He came to West Hollywood from Boston 20 years ago. “This city has allowed a lot of my ambition, commitment, hard work, passion, and drive to come to fruition.”
He founded OUTLOUD in 2019 specifically to give queer artists a bigger platform and LGBTQ+ audiences a premium concert experience that was actually built for them, not just tolerant of them. When West Hollywood launched WeHo Pride as its own official City celebration in 2022, Consoletti was the producer from year one. The City Council locked JJLA in through 2030 last April, with a budget of $7.2 million for the 2025 edition alone.
“I wanted to create an event FOR our community,” he said. “Yes, we buy tickets and attend the big mainstream festivals and concerts in droves — but what if we had the same high-caliber, well-designed, authentically curated experience FOR us. That it’s happening all these years later is a pinch-me moment.”
What West Hollywood Does That No Other City Can
There’s a question Consoletti gets asked a lot, and I was less than original when I asked the same one: what makes WeHo different from the other cities JJLA works in. He was quick to make it clear. “Hands down, the partnership with the City of West Hollywood,” he said. “The municipality steps up and stands by the LGBTQ+ community consistently. We close the central artery of the City for three days in recognition of that commitment and in celebration of our rights in such a visible way that is truly standing at the forefront of the LGBTQ movement — at a time when we need it most.”
That time is now more than it’s been in a while. Pride events across the country are in genuine trouble. Tucson Pride — founded in 1977, one of the oldest in the country — announced it’s canceling its 2026 festival and dissolving the organization entirely, buried under $50,000 in debt from poor attendance and lost sponsors. Tampa Pride canceled citing Florida’s political climate. San Francisco Pride lost an estimated $200,000 to $300,000 last year when major corporate sponsors walked. New York City Pride faced a $750,000 shortfall after Mastercard, PepsiCo, and others pulled out. Many organizers point directly to the Trump administration’s anti-DEI executive orders as the reason.
West Hollywood is not having that conversation. The City is funded, contracted, and ready. “I’m proud to work in West Hollywood and to shape a Pride event that the world watches,” Consoletti said.
Pride Is Free
Every year the same storyline surfaces and every year Consoletti is ready for it. OUTLOUD is cannibalizing Pride. Tickets approaching $179 for a three-day pass are unreasonable. Pride should be free.
“Pride IS free,” he said. “We work so hard to create a mile of free programming — hundreds of vendors, nationally recognized brand partners, over 80 entertainers across two stages, a world-class, star-studded parade with 120 entries, a motorcycle-led march, and of course access to all of the Rainbow District’s LGBTQ+ establishments in expanded ways.”
“And because of our partnership with the City, we also give access to OUTLOUD Music Festival itself for free on Friday night,” he said. “That’s a world-class concert experience at no cost.”
The ticketed OUTLOUD festival exists alongside all of that, he said, not instead of it. “I believe this community deserves something MORE. Something special that exists just for US. The cost of producing a music festival is exorbitant. Production is pricey. Artists are expensive. And despite that, we work hard to keep prices moderate.” OUTLOUD’s costs run more than 50 percent less than comparable pop and dance festivals in the desert, San Francisco, the beach, and Las Vegas, he said. “And if attending the ticketed OUTLOUD festival isn’t for you, we put equal effort into extensive free options throughout WeHo Pride.”
The Art of the Lineup
Past OUTLOUD headliners include Kylie Minogue, Lizzo, Lil Nas X, Paris Hilton, Grace Jones, Doechii, and Kesha. Consoletti doesn’t pretend the pressure isn’t real.
“HA — who says I’m not chasing myself?” he said. “I put a lot of pressure on myself to create the best event experience every year — not so much in a way of trying to out-do myself, but to truly not let my peers down.” His husband, his family, his colleagues, close friends — they’re the support system that gets him through it. They show up for him and know how to talk him down when it gets heavy.
If you’ve spent any time with Jeff Consoletti, you know he’s not the guy who takes up all the air in the room. He listens more than he talks. He deflects credit. He remembers names. He’s a pretty humble guy. He spreads the credit around. “OUTLOUD would not be what it is today without the many voices and all their hearts and hard work that push it forward,” he said.
Ask him what he’s actually most proud of and it’s not the unicorn. “What makes me even prouder is that we’ve created a festival experience that showcases rising queer talent in an equally profound way,” he said. “To put these hardworking rising artists on the same bill as one of their idols is such a special moment. And now, to get to watch many of those artists blossom into bigger names, knowing that OUTLOUD played a part in that — that’s exactly why I created it.”
For That Person
There’s a moment every year, right in the middle of everything, that Consoletti says brings it all back. It happens after the parade kicks off and he’s cruising back down Santa Monica Boulevard to get doors open at OUTLOUD and the Street Fair. Thousands of people lining the boulevard. And somewhere in that crowd, he knows, is someone who’s never done this before. Someone experiencing Pride in West Hollywood for the very first time, after his team spent more than 365 days building it for them.
“I do it for that person,” he said.
The lights going out before a headliner hits the stage still gets him. Every time. “The way the roar of the crowd takes over pumps me up tenfold every year,” he said. “It never gets old.”
When it wraps and the park empties out, he doesn’t sit with it long. “Take a moment for gratitude,” he said. “And get right back to work.”
OUTLOUD Music Festival at WeHo Pride runs June 5 through 7, 2026 at West Hollywood Park, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd. Passes are on sale now at outloudmusicfestival.com. Full WeHo Pride Weekend information at wehopride.com.
Editor’s Note: I founded and programmed CHANNEL Q, a WeHo Pride and OUTLOUD Music Festival promotional partner. This story was reported and written independently.
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Hear it ALL weekend ALL day and night long.