The Fest 9

Welcome to Fest 9

Welcome to the official launch of the Ye Old FEST 9 website. I would like to start off by giving a big thanks to the fine folks at The Black Axe for building the site and creating our medieval theme this year. I am sure there will be some brew-warrior costumes roaming the streets of Gainesville this year.

This awesome site will grow as we do, with more info on what we have planned as The Fest 9 draws nearer. We are once again holding THE FEST over Halloween Weekend!!! I hope to see more debauchery and costumes this time around. Last year we had some amazing costumes about but this year, especially with our theme, I can only imagine what folks and bands will come up with. So this is a challenge tossed down from the mountain to bring your best this year. We will not have another FEST Halloween for 7 years!!!
 
Last year I talked about scaling back THE FEST 8 and in the end we grew to having 322 artists in three days. What can I say? If I have room and awesome bands who want to play, we will make the party bigger. So with that I am excited to announce that we are adding a new venue to THE FEST 9! It is called 8 Seconds. Do you remember walking by a big place that was painted like a cow? Well they have lost the spots, got some rad new owners who love punk rock, and want to host everyone this year. The place holds almost 1,000 people and looks like a crazy country tiki bar inside. This will give everyone more breathing room and make the lines at smaller clubs disappear we hope. We are still using The Venue, Common Grounds, Market Street Pub (all three days this year!), The Atlantic, 1982, Rum Runners, CMC, and adding The Top (new outside patio) and Wayward Council. We are sorry to say that the Kickstand is no more. It was a great venue at FEST times and normal times, but they shut their doors recently. Also, we are not using Durty Nelly’s this year due to management change over. But, overall this will be our biggest and best year to date!

There are so many awesome bands playing so far this year. Plenty of new bands like Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Teenage Bottlerocket, Cobra Skulls, High on Fire, Hard Skin, and Suicide Machines to name a few. Also, this year we will be celebrating No Idea Records turning 25 years old!!! So we got Twelve Hour Turn and Planes Mistaken for Stars to reunite, as well as a whole cast of No Idea alumni playing!!!

I am also pretty amped that THE FEST 9, so far, will be hosting more foreign bands! The active count stands at 22 bands full of foreigners and I am sure we will have more to come.

We are happy to also confirm that the HOLIDAY INN will once again be the official party down headquarters and will host THE FEST 9 registration and the FEST FLEA MARKET. Their room rates have stayed the same as last year too! Yeah! No price hike! Once again the Holiday Inn promises they will have real deal security so guests can party without being bummed by non-hotel guests trying to invade your party time. We will have the flea market/trade show/label expo thingy in their conference room again, and weather permitting; we are going to have another rad rooftop pool side reception on Friday afternoon with two awesome surprise guests performing for free!!!  Oh, and they have rooms to sleep in (if you need that kinda stuff).  So bring your swimmies, good vibes, and cold ones for the FEST 9 HALLOWEEN SPRING BREAK PARTY TIME EXCELLENT!!!

If you are looking for a more relaxed environment to rest your weary head, we have the EXECUTIVE FEST HOTEL. This will be at the Paramount Suites. It is super swanky and chills on a lake. Real nice stuff but no late night party time there. So if you are tired of the apeshit and need to re-charge this is totally the way to go.

Not only do we have the hotel and FEST 9 passes available now for purchase, we already have an assortment of FEST 9 shirts available. We have new designs from Horsebites, Black & Red Eye, Go Media, Barf! Comics, and Shark Guts as well as some old favorites incase you did not get them in years past.

We are still working through all the band applications and there are a ton. Problem is most of them kick ass!!! Deadline to get yours band application in is August 13th. You can mail in your app or apply online for a $5 donation to Harvest of Hope Foundation. Click here for more info on the application process.

So, we will slowly be adding bands in to our list so check back frequently. We will remind ya via MySpace, Facebook and Twitter of any updates we announce or add to THE FEST 9; so join up with us in this social media age.

Schedule is a pain in the ass each year, so be patient and I will try my best to at least get down who is playing on what day before summer is over. If you have applied hold tight and we will let you know by Sept 10th. Please do not email, text, call, MySpace, or telegram us about this. The more time it takes to check these messages the less time we have to plot and plan.

If you want to help us spread the word of FEST 9 we can send you flyers and posters once we get them made. Please email your contact information, address, and how many items you would need to streetteam@thefestfl.com

We are not doing volunteer sign ups yet but if you live in Gainesville and are interested please email Volunteer@thefestfl.com with all your contact info and we will let you know when we have sign up meetings. Usually they are late September/ early October.  

For now enjoy counting down the days to debauchery, start training your livers, practicing your stage dives, start your beards, and in October we get to join forces in lovely Gainesville, FL again!

Endless Cheers,
Tony Weinbender/ THE FEST CREW/ NO IDEA RECORDS FOOLS

Ps: Here is your public service announcement for FEST 9. We made this statement last year and I feel like it still reigns true!  If you are not planning on buying a FEST 9 ticket please do not come and invade our friendly environment and town. There are already enough people here who like to celebrate good times and in the past years there were some folks who thought that this was some kinda rainbow gathering. It makes the city not want to host the FEST when you have people destroying personal property, begging for money, raiding dumpsters, and overall just being a waste of time. Go to the woods and put on your own festival. Also, leave your dogs at home!!! I love dogs. Got a sweetheart of a pitbull at home. You know what she does not like? Loud music. Your dog does not either.

We will also not be hosting, encouraging, or condoning any house shows put on during FEST 9 weekend. We organize enough over three days to hopefully satisfy anyone. Last year, an incident happened due to someone trying to pull off another thing after hours. There are too many people here during FEST to have a show in your living room. I love house/space shows. I grew up on them, booked them, and still love going to them but during FEST weekend it is jus too much. GPD will be on extra after hours duties this year and will be checking the FEST message board to see where these parties will be going on. So we officially discourage hosting these at your house, space etc. We are also asking all bands who officially play FEST 9 to NOT play house shows in Gainesville during FEST 9.