For fans that weren’t able to purchase or afford tickets to iHeartRadio and KIIS-FM 102.7’s annual Jingle Ball holiday festival at Kia Forum in Inglewood on Friday, Dec. 1, the station hosted a free parking lot concert and fair for fans from 2-6 p.m.
Thousands of patrons — both with and without tickets to the sold-out big event inside the iconic arena — showed up early to see sets from up-and-coming acts like Teddy Swims, Charlieonnafriday, Gunnar and Paul Russell. Jingle Ball performers and K-pop stars P1Harmony gave fans a little taste of what they’ll be doing inside Kia Forum and all-female K-pop (G)I-dle did a special Q&A session with the parking lot crowd, too.
Russell, who is based in Los Angeles, has had a tremendous year thanks to the success of his song “Lil Boo Thang,” which went viral on TikTok over the summer.
“It’s nuts, it’s crazy how fast that stuff can spread,” Russell said about the success of the song during an interview backstage at Jingle Ball. “I looked down and my phone and it was just blowing up.”
Once it went viral, Russell was suddenly tasked with completing the song since it was originally recorded and as a 20-second piece of content that he uploaded to his socials.
“I had to hurry to do that and put it out and that was a process,” he said with a laugh. “But I’ve loved seeing what people have done with it on social media.”
Fans have used the track to post various dancing videos and to show off their significant others — and even pets.
“Here was a video where it was all these dogs in different sweaters,” he recalled. “I had the volume off when someone had sent it to me at first and then I realized they were using my song. That was cute.”
While he’s excited to play in front of the Jingle Ball Villiage crowd and living in the moment as they sing along to his hit, he’s ready for the next chapter in 2024.
“More music,” he said with a smile. “That’s what I’ll be doing next…
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