music event production
Within the vibrant constellation of global queer culture, Jacob Meehan has established himself as a pivotal creative force, an organizer who infuses every gathering with intention in order to harness the power of shared experience. His approach to event curation is visionary, yet grounded, shaped by a love of discovery and a gift for spotting new talent. Working within a larger organization of cultural engineers, he helps turn bold ideas into reality, driven by the desire to create the kind of spaces he once longed for growing up as a closeted queer teen in rural Roodhouse, Illinois.
Jacob’s work moves beyond entertainment. Each project explores connection and the humancapacity to evolve and transform. Through carefully curated lineups, interdisciplinary collaborations, equitable interventions, and spaces designed for both reflection and release, Jacob invites participants to tap into the energy that reminds us why we gather in the first place.
“It is in collectivities that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism.”
— Angela Y. Davis
In the early 2010s, before the ubiquity of social media, Jacob helped bolster America’s burgeoning queer underground by breathing new life into Chicago’s iconic but overlooked pre-AIDS gay venues like the Bijou Theater, then North America’s longest-running gay porn cinema. At a moment when PrEP was redefining sexual culture, these events fostered a renewed sense of freedom, introducinga new generation to what nightlife could be and what it once was in 1980s Chicago.
After relocating to Berlin in 2016, he became a co-organizer and booker of the beloved Buttons party. Their renowned weekend-long gatherings were defined by warmth, openness, and experimentation. Each edition brought people together in colorfulcelebration: soft-sculpture scenography, spontaneous performances (like Neapolitan folk music & dancers in the garden at sunrise), free BBQs (with Jacob manning the grill), charity mud fights, and even pop-up postcard stations and nail salons. Buttons became a home for a globalfamilyof dancers and dreamers, a place to come as you are, and leave more yourself than before.
WHOLE FESTIVAL
Since 2018, Jacob has served as a co-organizer of WHOLE – United Queer Festival, one of Europe’s most prominent queer cultural institutions. Rooted in Berlin’s rich nightlife scene, WHOLE has evolved from an intimate gathering of a few hundred into a sprawling festival. 2026 will be the 8th edition, attracting over 10,000 international attendees. More than a festival, WHOLE has become a living experiment in radical inclusion, creative collaboration, and communal joy, an ephemeral ecosystem that reimagines queer gatherings.
Jacob’s contributions to WHOLE are both creative and operational. He curates the ambient stage andhelps oversee the workshop program and sober space, offering attendees a restorative counterbalance to the festival’s high-energy spaces. He’s developed the recording program across all stages, and co-directs WHOLE’s social media, producing content that ranges from humorous festival vignettes to insightful community interviews.
His leadership extends beyond the festival grounds. Jacob was recently invited to Brussels’sListen Festival to speak on the panel “Navigating Politics as a Queer Promoter: A Western European Perspective.” The discussion featured Eloisa Blitzer (Maricas), Nola & Em (Fatsabbats), and Shay Malt (Adonis), moderated by Baxter M. Halter.
Through his ongoing work, Jacob is invested in the gathering—shaping experiences that honor the past, challenge the present, and imagine a more liberated intersectional future.
