RASA World Sells Out First Ever Two-Day Pier Play on the Santa Monica Pier, Two Weeks After Selling Out San Francisco Debut

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 7, 2026--

RASA World, the modern operating system built to scale live experiences, sold out Pier Play VI on Oct. 3-4, driving about 8,000 guests to the Santa Monica Pier for the largest edition in the festival’s history.

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Pier Play is RASA’s signature waterfront IP, where the company transforms beautiful piers around the world into a music festival setting. Pier Play VI has become the first-ever two-day music festival held on the Santa Monica Pier, featuring Grammy-nominated Meduza, Claptone, Monolink, LP Giobbi, Mind Against, Arodes and others.

This marks two sell-outs in just two weeks, building on a San Francisco debut that packed Pier 70 with 3,000 people. Since launching in 2024, the Pier Play has sold out six consecutive editions, surpassing 800% in growth.

“People said this industry can't scale," said Ahmad Muhaisen, CEO and Co-Founder of RASA World. "We sold out San Francisco, and two weeks later we made history on the Santa Monica Pier. We built the technology that lets us launch an IP, grow a community and repeat an event anywhere. This is just the beginning."

Pier Play’s Largest Brand Roster Yet

Pier Play’s first weekend edition was backed by the largest roster of brand activations it has ever seen.

AlphaTheta, the company behind Pioneer DJ, transformed a full-size school bus into a mobile DJ academy, where hundreds of guests received hands-on coaching using the company’s latest equipment.

Sony Electronics powered a lounge at the heart of the grounds, with more than 10 ULT speakers, while Topo Chico provided complimentary refreshments to thousands of guests throughout the weekend.

Suntory Global Spirits, an annual partner across all of RASA's California events, set up a Hornitos Tequila cocktail bar and a dedicated -196 lounge, pouring complimentary tastings of new and signature drinks all weekend.

Psilly Goose poured non-alcoholic, botanical-packed beverage options for all guests. Fun Guy treated VIP guests to complimentary mood-boosting, adaptogenic chews to enhance social elevation in a completely natural way.

Love.com hosted a cabana lounge in the VIP section, and Silk the Rich sponsored the onsite barber shop where guests could freshen up with haircuts, hairwashes and trims on the ground. Delicious Minis deployed roaming cannoli carts in the backstage and VIP areas, offering guests a luxurious moment and “table-side” experience.

Across the weekend, around 8,000 attendees interacted with the playground of brand activations, giving partners direct access to RASA’s premium audience through unique, hands-on experiences.

Pier Play Expands Into Wellness

Pier Play VI marked RASA's first move into sport and wellness, and the start of building wellness into the RASA community year-round.

Day two of the festival opened with a 60-minute open-air power yoga and meditation session led by Miki Ash, a yoga and meditation teacher who has taught for Alo Yoga and founder of the wellness app, The How.

About 45 people participated in the vinyasa yoga session held at Club Studio, the upscale fitness brand from the group behind LA Fitness. The session was sponsored by Bioderma, RTHMS, and Sports Research, bringing skincare, supplements, community, and premium fitness together for the festival's new wellness track.

More Than $500,000 Raised With WHEN Justice

Every Pier Play pass directly benefitted WHEN Justice, a non-profit that funds public-interest litigation to protect human and environmental health.

RASA and WHEN Justice officially launched their impact partnership at Pier Play San Francisco on Sept. 19. Together, they have raised over $500,000 together, and the partnership will continue across four additional events.

"At its heart, WHEN is about identifying where we, as entrepreneurs, experts, and everyday citizens, can be changemakers," said Roland Peralta, the founder and philanthropist behind WHEN Justice. "Scrolling on our phones and sitting on the sidelines can't be the solve. Putting our collective weight behind public-interest litigation might just be."

The nonprofit has helped secure landmark settlements requiring AT&T to remove 107,000 pounds of toxic lead cables from Lake Tahoe and forcing a $70 billion waste management company to re-engineer its landfill system to keep pollution out of the San Francisco Bay. Through this partnership, RASA aims to advance the organization's mission and help raise funds for its next major victories.

A Growing Platform

Pier Play has become the first recurring dance music festival staged on the Santa Monica Pier. After six consecutive sell-outs since 2024, RASA plans to scale the Pier Play IP into more cities and multi-weekend formats, with new venues in the works for 2027.

To stay updated on RASA’s calendar of events or to get involved, please visit RASAWorld.com.

About RASA World

RASA World is the modern operating system built to scale live experiences. Our technology unifies the fragmented tools behind live events into one platform, using it to develop and deploy culture-defining experiences worldwide. RASA partners with global brands and destination properties to unlock recurring revenue from underutilized space, unused time windows, and first-party audience relationships by integrating data, automation, and on-site execution into a coordinated commercial system. Operating across 12 cities worldwide, RASA World has activated more than one million square feet of physical space and built a first-party audience database of more than 113,000 people. The company is backed by unicorn founders and venture capital firms including Bullpen Capital, Transform VC, and The Family Fund.

Around 8,000 guests came to the Santa Monica Pier for Pier Play VI on Oct. 3-4, 2026, the first two-day music festival ever held on the pier. [Credits: RASA World]

Around 8,000 guests came to the Santa Monica Pier for Pier Play VI on Oct. 3-4, 2026, the first two-day music festival ever held on the pier. [Credits: RASA World]

Around 8,000 guests came to the Santa Monica Pier for Pier Play VI on Oct. 3-4, 2026, the first two-day music festival ever held on the pier. [Credits: RASA World]

Around 8,000 guests came to the Santa Monica Pier for Pier Play VI on Oct. 3-4, 2026, the first two-day music festival ever held on the pier. [Credits: RASA World]

Around 8,000 guests came to the Santa Monica Pier for Pier Play VI on Oct. 3-4, 2026, the first two-day music festival ever held on the pier. [Credits: RASA World]

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scientists Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for untangling mysterious mirror images in molecules, a discovery that has been used to develop countless drugs and transformed modern medicine.

Many molecules come in versions that look alike but are not exactly identical, like right and left hands. Kagan, who is from France, and Soai, from Japan, found ways to make chemistry pick a side, describing and designing reactions to produce the desired mirror image.

“The medicines we have today would not be possible without this chemistry,” said Rigoberto Hernandez, president of the American Chemical Society.

Soai was shopping at a neighborhood supermarket when he heard he had won.

“I’m very excited to receive the very nice news,” Soai told the Nobel committee and journalists by phone. “Of course, this is one of the most exciting days in my life.”

Mirror images of the same molecule can have different properties. For example, one version of the chemical carvone smells like mint, while the other has a whiff of caraway, a spice often used in rye bread.

The alternate versions can also behave differently when interacting with other chemicals. When designing drugs to treat diseases, scientists are choosy about which mirror image they use. They want the version of a molecule to treat a cold, not one that will make the sniffles worse.

In the 1980s, Kagan’s work showed there might be a way to design reactions to produce one form of a molecule over the other. Years later, Soai perfected the process. He created the first-ever chemical reaction to efficiently produce only one of a molecule’s mirror images, in what’s now known as the Soai reaction.

“This is probably the coolest experiment in organic chemistry,” said Peter Somfai, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Kagan, 95, is affiliated with the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, France. Soai, 76, is affiliated with the Tokyo University of Science. The Nobel committee described their work as a feat never previously achieved by anyone “other than life itself.”

The French Academy of Sciences, where Kagan is a member, congratulated him, as did French President Emmanuel Macron, who called the prize “an immense source of pride for the country” and “a recognition befitting a lifetime of research.”

“It might be difficult to say that this drug, or that drug, was developed using this,” Somfai said. “I would say all of them, because we use this as a tool, we use this as an understanding, how to develop catalysts, how they function.”

Life, too, prefers one mirror image over the other. DNA twists to the right, and the proteins in human bodies are made of mostly left-handed building blocks.

In addition to developing better medicines or perfumes, deciphering the mirror images of molecules can help scientists understand the chemical architecture of life, said chemist Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the journal Science.

“There are still fascinating aspects that remain unknown and surely more yet to be discovered,” Soai said at a news conference hosted by his university in Tokyo. "I hope to do what I can, however modestly, to contribute to help advance research in this field."

Japan’s largest newspaper, Yomiuri, distributed an extra edition with a headline proclaiming “Nobel Prize Mr. Soai,” with a big photo of the scientist. The papers quickly disappeared as office workers picked them up on their way home.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winner in Stockholm.

Last year, three scientists won the chemistry Nobel for their development of new molecular structures that can trap vast quantities of gas inside, laying the groundwork to potentially suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere or harvest moisture from desert environments.

This year's prizes began with the Nobel for medicine, awarded Monday to three scientists whose work led to a tool that uses light to help unravel how the brain works. The physics award announced Tuesday recognized a scientist's efforts to demystify a rare group of neutrinos.

The literature prize is set to be awarded Thursday. After Friday’s peace prize is awarded, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced Monday.

The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million), whether for an individual, a small group of laureates or an organization.

This story has been corrected to correct that Kagan, not Soai, is 95.

Ramakrishnan reported from New York. Dazio reported from Berlin. Associated Press journalists Alexa St. John in Detroit, Catherine Gaschka in Paris and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

AP Nobel Prizes: https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes

Japanese chemist Kenso Soai receives a bouquet of flowers from a university staff member before the press conference at Tokyo University of Science in Tokyo, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, after winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)

Japanese chemist Kenso Soai, speaks during a news conference at Tokyo University of Science in Tokyo, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, after winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)

Japanese chemist Kenso Soai, who won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, leaves home for a press conference, in Shiki, Saitama prefecture, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. (Kyodo News via AP)

Japanese scientist Kenso Soai, winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, leaves home for a press conference, in Shiki, Saitama prefecture, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. (Kyodo News via AP)

Portraits of Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai are shown on the screen as they are awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, on Oct. 7, 2026. Photo: (Fredrik Sandberg/TT News Agency via AP)

Portraits of Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai are shown on the screen as they are awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, on Oct. 7, 2026. Photo: (Fredrik Sandberg/TT News Agency via AP)

FILE - A close-up view of a Nobel Prize medal at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., Dec. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)