How a rave with Bill Nye and Quavo turned out droves of early voters at City Hall

One approach to getting Philadelphia’s more than 1.1 million registered voters to cast their ballots: pole dancers, Bill Nye, and a rave with Quavo.

That was theme of a dance party at LOVE Park Tuesday morning, where the rapper joined Nye, Sixers Reggie Jackson and KJ Martin, a stilt walker, and a brass band to march hundreds of people across the street to City Hall to vote ahead of the Nov. 5 general election.

The unconventional rally was the most recent stop on a tour hosted by the Civic Responsibility Project and professional party company Daybreaker, which have put on nonpartisan raves in over 32 cities across the United States since September to boost voter engagement in battleground states.

It was the latest extravagant event to leverage the debatably influential power of celebrity for the sake of targeting Pennsylvania’s fractured electorate. Across the state, civic engagement initiatives have joined high-profile rallies for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump to inundate residents with one message: Vote, just like your favorite famous person.

» READ MORE: Where to drop off your mail ballot in Philadelphia

Called the Purple Tour, the series was piloted in Philadelphia ahead of the April primary election. The events have since gotten flashier and more irreverent. In Reno, Lil Jon made Nevada’s secretary of state get down to party anthem “Shots”; at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, mother-loving rapper Yung Gravy told students to vote because “girls will like you.”

Some researchers say that celebrity endorsements are unlikely to make a difference with deeply engaged voters who have crystallized political opinions, but that they can persuade newer voters — particularly among Gen Z — to participate in elections.

At Tuesday’s event, several attendees said they wouldn’t have voted early (or at all) if it wasn’t for Quavo or the Purple Tour’s antics. Following the concert, the line outside City Hall’s early-voting location wrapped around the building.

» READ MORE: Harris and Trump are navigating Pennsylvania’s gender gap with bro podcasts and ladies’ room Post-its

“It’s so important to find ways to make this process fun and exciting,” said Ashley Spillane, director of the Civic Responsibility Project. “We hear a lot from young people who say they wouldn’t have woken up on, like, a Sunday morning to vote if these events hadn’t happened.”

The day began with a yoga class, followed by an hour-long DJ set that opened up a free-flowing dance circle where attendees hit Jersey Club TikTok dances as a pole (or poll, get it?) dancer twirled to EDM remixes of classic party hits, like Deee-Lite’s “Groove is in the Heart.”

Science guy Nye then took the stage, where he quoted the Constitution — seemingly from memory — to exalt the importance of voting.

“When you vote early, you make sure your vote [is] going to be counted,” said Nye, who told The Inquirer he voted by mail in California last week.

Quavo took over soon afterward with a 15-minute uncensored medley of rap group Migos’ greatest hits. Bubbles floated over the stage as concertgoers dropped it low to “Stir Fry” and filled in the not-safe-for-a-newspaper lyrics to “Fight Night” over the rapper’s ad-libs.

At 11 a.m., Quavo escorted attendees to City Hall. There, they were joined by students from 17 Philadelphia high schools who were eligible to vote in their first election.

In Pennsylvania, residents were allowed to vote early through Tuesday by requesting a mail ballot and filling it out on-site at designated polling locations.

“I would’ve been in bed sleeping” if it wasn’t for Quavo, said Zachary Vance, 24, of North Philly, who planned to cast his ballot for Harris. “I was surprised they had strippers … this was pretty hype.”

Tuesday’s concert turned out voters because it used a celebrity as a draw and then made voting seem frictionless, with people literally escorted to the polls, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center and a political communication scholar.

Though they are plentiful, not all celebrity endorsements work. One study from researchers at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona found that such endorsements can negatively affect political candidates in the long run, while others show that celebs mostly reify support for already popular candidates. Just this month, the Harris campaign hosted rallies in Philly with Bruce Springsteen and trotted out Robert De Niro and Kerry Washington to canvass, while controversial tech entrepreneur Elon Musk stumped for Trump.

» READ MORE: Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama exhort Philly supporters to get out and vote for Kamala Harris

“There are celebrities who might attract large audiences who aren’t helpful to candidates because their followers are already engaged and have already made up their minds,” said Jamieson.

Jamieson likened the Quavo concert to a smaller-scale version of other endorsements where the celeb “facilitated taking an action,” like Taylor Swift driving nearly 500,000 visits to vote.gov after posting the link to her Instagram story alongside her endorsement of Harris, or Bad Bunny encouraging followers to peruse Harris’ platform after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” to rev up the crowd at a Trump rally Sunday.

The latter persuaded Maria Rodriguez, who is Puerto Rican, to vote in the first place.

Rodriguez felt that casting a ballot for Trump or Harris was like “choosing between the lesser of two evils” until this week. Her father — who Rodriguez said splits time between New York City and Puerto Rico — drew in part on the rapper’s endorsement to persuade her to vote for Harris. Rodriguez waved a full-size Puerto Rican flag during the dance party in LOVE Park.

» READ MORE: Puerto Rican celebrities weigh in after Trump rally speaker comments

“It was so infuriating that yet again politicians are treating Puerto Ricans like we are less than,” said Rodriguez, 37. “I want to see our country move forward with inclusivity.”

David McCoy, 33, of Germantown, meanwhile, said he “would’ve waited” to vote on Nov. 5 if not for the Quavo concert. He came to hear “Bad and Boujee” live and stuck around once he realized they were heading to the polls afterward.

A first-time voter who avoided politics until this year, McCoy said he planned to vote for Harris.

“I have a lot of sisters and a daughter on the way,” McCoy said. “I feel ecstatic right now, like I’m doing something right.”