Some of the biggest names in the music industry come to mind when you hear the name Scooter Braun, and rightfully so, with clients like Ariana Grande, Black Eyed Peas, and Justin Bieber under his management. However, one of Braun's most significant recent projects relating to music is the Nova: Oct. 7 6:29 am — The Moment Music Stood Still: The Nova Music Festival Exhibition.
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"I went over to Israel in December," he told The Hollywood Reporter, following the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 killing more than 1200 people, of which almost 400 were in the Nova Festival. "I needed to see the Nova side. I needed to see the kibbutz. I needed to see all of it for myself – and not because I needed to believe it. With Holocaust-surviving grandparents, the attack on Manchester's AO Arena with Ariana Grande, I know this kind of evil exists."
The exhibit was originally organized and displayed in Israel by Yagil Simony, Ofir Amir, and Omri Sari. "I see the tents, and I see the porta potties, and I see everything. And I immediately go, 'I need to bring this to New York and L.A. People need to see this,'" Braun recounted. After experiencing it there, he decided to collaborate with them to bring the exhibit to the United States. "It's just about a massacre at a music festival that should have never happened," he said. "But music is a universal language and music has to remain a safe place," dedicated to providing widespread access to Nova, as he believes the project rises above politics.
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The exhibit, taking place at 35 Wall Street in New York City, has already hosted over 100,000 visitors and has been extended through June 22, with plans to bring it to Los Angeles in the fall or late summer. Moran Stella Yanai, a former Israeli hostage kidnapped from the Nova Festival and later released in a prisoner exchange deal, visited the exhibit and found her own shoes among the belongings retrieved from the Nova site on display.
"You see the testimonies from survivors. You see videos from their phones. You see the video that Hamas took and put all online to understand what happened that day," Braun explained. "You don't walk in and see flags. You'll see it is a music festival. You'll see Coachella. You'll see Stagecoach... And that's all we want people to see, that you should be able to have empathy for all people."
