Local Music Festivals Struggle to Continue
In the past, we've written a lot about two start-up music festivals, the Six Points Music Festival and DAM! Fest, which were both organized locally, held in venues around town and highlighted both local musicians as well as acts from elsewhere. We realized that too many press-release-free months had gone by with no mention of anything new, so we checked in with the organizers to see what was afoot. Unfortunately for local music fans, there isn't much good news.
Heather Huff, organizer of the Six Points Music Festival, which is focused mostly on new local bands but expanded its purview a bit last year to include groups from outside the D.C. area, was uncertain. "It's largely still up in the air," she said. "It definitely won't be at the same time, but could potentially be held later in the year. Or, we may skip this year and hold one next year. Although, there's also a possibility that it is done for good." She attributed the uncertainty to some of the organizers moving on from the fest or D.C. altogether, and a general lack of time. "We somehow managed to pull it off last year with only two people working on it, but a lot of things we had planned suffered because we were stretched too thin."
Eric Boucher of the District's Awake Music Festival (aka the DAM! Fest) was also a bit uncertain. In January, he told us he didn't have the format or dates set. He said he was searching for some seed money and hoped to put something on in the August-October time frame. He also admitted to some problems with last year's fest: "While I was excited about the bands -- and so were others -- turn-out was not great. Though, most of those issues would not have been that visible to the common fan. The venues -- especially the R 'n' R Hotel -- and me, whose pockets got hit hard, certainly saw it." Boucher hasn't responded to our more recent requests for updates, and the festival's web site domain registration has since expired (same story with the Six Points web site).
We asked both organizers if they had considered merging their festivals together to make one large fest, which might make organizing easier, but neither party seemed interested. Boucher said "their scope is different than ours," mentioning that DAM! Fest was trying to get more national publicity, and Huff said "I'm not sure how easily they would be merged since their models are so different." Both also noted that Huff used to work on the DAM! Fest when it first started.
But really, are the two festivals that different? One festival had bands that play in venues around the city. The other festival... had bands that play in venues around the city. It doesn't seem like most concert goers noticed a distinction, and most would not be opposed to one big fest with some new bands, some local bands, and some bigger national bands. We just want music!
How about you, D.C. music fans? Can this city support even one local music festival?