Merge Summit August 26-28 to Bring Together Gospel, Entertainment Industries

What do Kirk Franklin and Brian Courtney Wilson have in common with Harry Lennix and Chrisette Michele?

They are all confirmed presenters for the second Merge Summit, to be held at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles August 26 to 28.

Dr. Holly Carter (right), founder and chairman of the event, spoke by telephone with TBGB about the Merge Summit and how it began.

“The Merge Summit is a two and a half day event designed to bring the sacred and the secular together,” Carter explained. “It brings the faith community and the entertainment community together in one place for networking, empowerment sessions, panel discussions and interactive workshops. The goal is to empower talented Christians seeking to cross over into the entertainment field.”

Carter has loads of experience in both the faith and entertainment worlds. Her company, Releve’ Entertainment, is an LA-based firm representing urban crossover talent, with a focus towards packaging and managing family and faith-based products for mainstream success. Relevé also specializes in artist management, where intersecting involvement in the genres of film, television, and music is the focal point.

The inspiration to organize the first Merge Summit, held last year, came from Carter’s educational and professional experience.

“I got the inspiration from my last year in school, writing my dissertation on merging the sacred and secular, Christianity and Hollywood. I was encouraged to put the paper to task because that’s what I’ve been doing all along, representing music artists and working with family- and faith-based television and film production. I also travel a lot, and in my travels, I’m often handed a CD or a script, or asked if I can check a person out to see if they have what it takes. I figured, it’s going to take more than me to be of assistance, so let me try to find a platform to give people an opportunity to touch the entertainment industry in a way they haven’t had before.”  The Merge Summit was born.

The response to the first Merge Summit was “overwhelming,” she said. “We only anticipated 100 people to attend because it was our first year and the economy was down,” Carter related. “But over the course of the three days, 500 people attended. I did not imagine we would get that kind of response.”

Sessions and panels scheduled for this year’s event include creating music that sells, film and television scriptwriting, personal imaging, faith and Hollywood, producing, and spiritual development. Speakers and presenters are major representatives of the television, film, and music industries.

While securing such a stellar pool of talent for the summit workshops and concerts would be an herculean task for most, for Carter it’s all about “having relationships. The Lord has really blessed me over the course of my life to have relationships with talented people in the gospel industry. If I have not managed the artist, I have worked with him or her in some form or fashion. God’s grace and favor allows me to pick up the phone and say to artists, ‘I need you.’ “

Does she and her team anticipate a similar response this year? “We’re looking for the same number as last year [500], but the main thing I’m concerned about is meeting the standard and going beyond what we did last year, because we received so many gracious comments and compliments about what we put together. And I say ‘we’ because a group of people really puts it together.” Robi Reed serves as the event’s co-chair, and a board of directors and host committee are in place to help facilitate a smooth operation.

A highlight of the event will be the Merge Showcase for emerging gospel talent, hosted by Pastor Hezekiah Walker. Carter said that slots are still available if artists want to get on the showcase. The registration deadline has been extended to August 14. Interested parties should contact Nicole Pearson for more details; her contact information can be found at www.themergesummit.com.

The Merge Summit will conclude with Freedom, a concert experience hosted by Kirk Franklin and featuring top-shelf performers such as J Moss and the Soul Seekers.

The concert is a celebration of the life and legacy of Carter’s father, the late Rev. Billy Watkins. Formerly of the popular gospel quartet the Zion Travelers, Watkins later toured the world as a soloist. “Then he wanted to come back to his roots, give his life to God and feed the people,” Carter said. “He dedicated the last thirty years of his life to feeding the homeless every single day, out of his own pocket.”

The Freedom Travelers, a quartet Watkins formed later in his life, will also perform at the concert.

“What we are hoping to do is raise enough money to buy the lot where my father fed the homeless,” Carter explained. “We want to create an oasis and erect a building in his honor. We want to maintain the lot with flowers and grass so people can come there, remember my dad, and continue to be fed and sheltered and clothed.”

For more information about the Merge Summit 2010, visit www.themergesummit.com.