Kevin Lyman received Visionary Award at Billboard Live Music Summit

At the Nov. 2025 Billboard Live Music Summit, USC Thornton music industry faculty member Kevin Lyman was honored with the Visionary Award for his contributions to the live music industry, including founding the Vans Warped Tour. Beginning in 1995, the traveling music festival would become a punk institution over the next two decades, providing a community for millions of young fans.

“It was always about trying to get people out to their first festival,” Lyman said at a panel called “How Warped Tour Built a Lasting Legacy — And Returned In 2025.” “Everything we did from the reverse daycare center [letting parents attend for free in a ‘parents’ tent’ so teens could attend], all the things I developed were how to get these young people turned on to this music at a younger age, so they can stay with us.”

It also helped put acts like My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco on the map. The experience of Warped Tour for those backstage was also of pure, unadulterated fun.

“I never went to summer camp, but it was the best summer camp on the planet,” Pennywise’s Fletcher Dragge said at the panel.

Click here to see the award acceptance.

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Photo courtesy of USC Thornton.