In an effort to draw more Ball State students to the downtown area, local businesses are uniting in the name of music for this year's Muncie MusicFest.
The downtown streets will host a total of 62 Midwest artists of varying genres, on a total of three outdoor stages and seven indoor stages Saturday.
Cheryl Crowder, co-founder of Muncie MusicFest, said the event's main target is Ball State students.
"I really think it's our first chance every year to invite Ball State students downtown," Crowder said. "They really are our biggest audience for this event, even though it's a community event."
Starting in 2007, Muncie MusicFest arose when End of Summer Jam, a downtown concert headlined by a nationally touring artist, Peter Frampton for example, could no longer be funded.
But Graham Watson and fellow co-founder Mike Martins were not going to give up.
"We were sad to see that there wasn't a big downtown concert event because there wasn't money for it," Watson said. "So we created Muncie MusicFest so that on a budget, we could pull in all the local talent that we could and put on hopefully an even bigger show than we would've been able to with just a single national headliner."
Now in its fifth year, Muncie MusicFest is still evolving. With little financial support, the festival relies on the work of volunteers.
"Since we don't have a large volunteer staff, some massive tasks are put in the hands of single people, instead of teams of people like they usually are," Watson said.
Watson oversees the band selection process, bringing together a committee of music promoters who weigh out how well the artists can be promoted, how well the artists will promote themselves, whether or not the artists will add to the overall diversity of the festival and the artists' experience levels.
"We don't want to book all professional, seasoned bands," Watson said. "We deliberately book new, up-and-coming bands that people haven't been exposed to a lot, and we actually, in some cases, knock off some of the more popular bands just so we get an opportunity to get a diversity of bands, including amateur bands. Same thing with a diversity of genres."
He said one of the outdoor stages at the festival will feature mostly hip-hop acts, the most notable being Indianapolis' Rusty Redenbacher, of Mudkids fame. Watson also mentioned The Embraceables and Midwest Hype as two other notable acts that he recommends checking out.
In addition to selecting the bands, Muncie MusicFest is also faced with the task of pairing each band with an appropriate stage.
For example, The Artist Within, a pottery painting business, will host live performances at this year's festival. Crowder said this venue is very appropriate for acts with only one or two people, even though it is not typically associated with music performance.
Word of the festival has reached other parts of the state with many of the artists performing are not from Muncie.
Hythum El-sayyad, vocals and keyboardist for Apollo Quad, an alternative hip-hop group that will perform upstairs at The Heorot, knew of the festival despite his band's Bloomington, Ind., roots.
"I've heard so many great things about the Muncie MusicFest and seeing as how I've never attended, I'm ecstatic to be playing," he said. "I think it will be great exposure for us, and we will get the chance to hear some other great bands."
Muncie MusicFest
When: 5 p.m.-1 a.m. Saturday
Where: Downtown Muncie (enter at Walnut and Jackson streets or Walnut and Charles streets)
Cost: $10, some venues are 21+
munciemusicfest.com
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