IndieFest is one of the largest music and arts festivals in San Diego and is produced by Danielle LoPresti and Alicia Champion together with a lot of other hardworking folks behind the scenes. This week, IndieFest got a huge advantage and jumpstart for future festivals as they signed a partnership agreement with EXUSMED,™ a corporation offering affordable mobile primary health care solutions for both patients and providers.
EXUSMED will support IndieFest through sponsorship of the annual festival which will add substantially to the extensive line-up of entertainment, art and music IndieFest has become known for.
For co-founder Danielle LoPresti, the partnership is particularly meaningful, due to her battle with a rare and aggressive form of cancer this past year. LoPresti used treatment that included mobile health care and she felt that she had such success with this method of treatment that the link-up with EXUSMED added a deeply personal aspect to this partnership.
San Diego LGBT Weekly caught up with Danielle LoPresti, Alicia Champion and EXUSMED’s president and CEO, A. Latham Staples, to find out more about this partnership and what it means to both organizations.
San Diego LGBT Weekly: Danielle, Alicia – how do you guys feel about the partnership between IndieFest and EXUSMED?
LoPresti/Champion: Excited and inspired! We are ready to roll our sleeves up and get down to the business of creating IndieFest 9 the way we do it best. Insuring it is fun, empowering and always transformative art with a new partner who truly embraces the idea of going beyond the status quo to help make life better for people.
How will this change IndieFest’s future?
Well, every year IndieFest features different service organizations, non profits and businesses that merge together this idea of service to the community via ways that are either new, or relatively unknown and deserving of attention.
But in all the years of producing IndieFest, we’ve never had a partnership at this level with a company who exemplifies this ideal at its core. This means there’s going to be more power than in years past behind this idea of how we can utilize technology to serve people, to heal and to address the needs of populations even in rural, poor communities. What’s particularly moving is that due to my experience with cancer last year, having been treated by one of my three doctors exclusively via Skype, phone and fax, Alicia and I have a very personal connection to the service EXUSMED is offering. I’m excited to see how this unfolds in terms of what we present at IndieFest 9.
Can you give us any spoilers about what the next IndieFest will hold in store for us?
Right now we’re in the process of pulling our ingredients out and filling in the details of what is our master plan for this magnificent meal we’re envisioning. We don’t want to give too much away so early on in the process but what we can tell you is that we’re making IndieFest more accessible than it’s ever been. We’ve got our eye on sustainability, more community involvement and even more diversity than ever before.
Latham, how do you feel about this partnership and IndieFest?
A. Latham Staples: Through the years IndieFest and its organizers have been trailblazers in bringing independent artists to the forefront of the public. We are delighted to partner with an organization that exemplifies EXUSMED’s groundbreaking mission of bringing new technologies and talent to the field of primary health care.
Thank you for taking the time to talk with us about this exciting new development!
For more information visit sandiegoindiefest.com and exusmed.com
