In Venice Beach, the sun is setting and live music plays below palm trees and string lights. This venue is Saturdays at Seven, and was created by singer-songwriter Annika Grace in the backyard of her home in Venice. Grace started the event two years ago. The Saturdays team includes Jillian Pennington, the Saturdays staff writer, and Emily Perry, the venue’s in-house photographer.
Prior to Saturdays, the L.A. Westside music scene was lacking. Saturdays was created as a space for music lovers to network. “I think there’s a lot of networking opportunities in L.A., but there’s not really ones that are very homey,” Grace says. The goal is to provide a welcoming environment for musicians on the Westside, with “the beachy vibes versus like, the Hollywood Club vibe,” Pennington says.
Grace says Saturdays has always been a free event, where attendees have access to street parking within her neighborhood. Because the event takes place around the homes of others, Grace is careful to not use drum sets and wraps up around 10 p.m. as a courtesy to her neighbors.
Before the COVID-19 shutdown, Grace was hosting Saturdays every other week with around 200 guests. The community had grown through word of mouth and Instagram, and it was a place where relationships were cultivated.
“I met my boyfriend at Saturdays. We’ve been together for almost two years now… it’s very special to a lot of people,” Pennington says about the venue. “We have the same people come each time and you develop relationships with those people, and then they bring their friends,” says Grace.
As a singer-songwriter, Grace established new connections. “My whole network just opened up immensely through [Saturdays]… I’ve met a lot of great people through it,” Grace says, adding that “most of my good friends have come from Saturdays.”
The Saturdays group also collaborated at Lyric Night, hosted at the Saturdays house, where artists engage in writing exercises and listening sessions. This gives singer-songwriters the opportunity to share songs they are working on for feedback and advice.
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Once the COVID-19 shutdown began, Saturdays shifted to a virtual format.
However, the transition was not seamless. For an experience-based event, it took time to decide how to keep the homey collaborative community alive. “Once we were like okay, we’re not going to let this go, this has to be something more… it was easier to start building the community back up again, because people miss it,” Pennington says.
In addition to bringing the L.A. singer-songwriter community together, Saturdays highlights up and coming artists, providing them exposure. Although an initial challenge, Saturdays has successfully pivoted to a virtual model, and continues to effectively highlight artists. The community has proven resilience, and Saturdays is now experienced through Instagram, YouTube, Spotify and the Saturdays at Seven blog. And Lyric Night is now offered over Zoom.
Social media has continued connecting users with their interests and friends, and increasing accessibility to content. Grace has noticed an influx of followers on the group’s Instagram page, @saturdaysatseven, with over 1,400 followers currently. On the page, audiences can tune in for live performances on the familiar set in Grace’s backyard.
Grace says it’s been great utilizing Instagram livestreams to provide live music, given people’s cravings for live performances.
Another way the group highlights musicians and inspires creative processes for artists includes Instagram artist take overs, where singer-songwriters will update the @saturdaysatseven Instagram story throughout the day.
The virtual shift even helped the Saturdays’ roster of artists to grow. “Once we started up the blog and the YouTube series, we got a lot more submissions from artists from all over,” Grace says. The L.A. collective is now available to artists continents away. “We’ve had artists tune in from London and other places, so it’s made it a lot more accessible,” she says.
The blog series, which debuted in October of 2020, includes artist features, new releases and an interview series. Grace and Pennington are the writers and aim to highlight up-and-coming artists in addition to any new music they love.
The Saturdays at Seven YouTube series Saturday Sessions, offers another platform for people to engage with, Pennington explains. “We have four or five artists come once a month or every other month, to film for a day. And it’s COVID safe… we have one artist at a time; it’s just Annika and I, an audio person and videographer,” Pennington says. When new videos are uploaded, typically biweekly, they premier on Saturdays at 7 p.m., mirroring the in-person program.
L.A. Based singer-songwriter Zoe Zobrist performed her original song “Fire” for Saturday Sessions. Zobrist describes Saturdays’ new format as “bridging the gap between being at home… and doing everything yourself but also, not quite having a full-blown live experience; I think that it was really nice to be able to have something sort of in between.”
While live performances for audiences have been difficult to recreate, Saturdays allows for a more authentic performer experience with Grace’s courtyard setup. The human connection of playing for an audience and sharing the energy of a room went away for a long time, says Zobrist. “It was really cool, even though there wasn’t an audience there, to have that community feeling,” she adds.
Zobrist believes the newly cultivated online communities of artists are here to stay. “As unfortunate as this year has been I think that a lot of people have gotten really creative with the way they’ve done things and branched out,” says Zobrist.
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The resilience of the Saturdays at Seven singer-songwriter community tells a story of how these creators continue to draw inspiration from one another and lift each other up.
Pennington says Saturdays has helped her stay creative and motivated while being unemployed during the pandemic. It has also reconfirmed her passion for the music industry, “even when it feels like it’s literally falling apart,” she says.
Pennington and Grace look forward to when they can host in-person events again, but for now are focusing on how to increase their reach through marketing and newsletters. They plan to expand the Saturdays community in new and creative ways.
“We want it to be a place where artists can count on their stuff getting promoted in a really effective and personable way,” Pennington says.