If you haven’t heard, Gen Z culture festivals are having a major moment right now. Just last month, we gave you all of the deets from ZCon in L.A. and now we have a brand-new event to put on your radar: Sunniefest. We all know and love Hello Sunshine, Reese Witherspoon’s media company, and Sunnie is its new, youth-focused branch focused on creating community beyond the TikTok comment section (I’d highly recommend scrolling through their articles and playbooks anytime you want to get your screen time down). Sunniefest brought this online community to life through a day of performance, interactive workshops, celeb speakers, great food, and tons of giveaways. There were no ice breakers or formal meetings—just a choose-your-own-adventure kind of day (my personal favorite).
One of the biggest moments from the event: Coach and Sunnie announced the launch of their youth-led book club Sunnie Reads. They gave a sneak peek at the book club’s cozy, community vibes in Coach’s Book Nook activation, where Sunnifest attendees could book swap or customize their own leather bookmarks (made from repurposed Coach bags, of course). The book club is currently cooking up a bi-monthly, Gen Z–curated list of must-reads called Sunnie Stacks and tons of other ways to get involved in the new year.
You already know we’re big readers here at Cosmo (shoutout Cosmo Reads), so we can’t wait to get all the Sunnie Reads reccs. While I’m adding Sunniefest 2026 to my cal, you can scroll through some pics from the event. Enjoy!
