AthFest Music & Arts Festival takes place in downtown June 22 through June 24. Events affiliated with the annual celebration of Athens’ creative culture, takes begin June 20th. The multi-day festival showcases local, regional and national bands on three outdoor stages, a juried artist market, KidsFest, vendors, beer gardens and a late night Club Crawl through Athens’ clubs and music venues. Booking Chair Troy Aubrey says this year’s event will include several improvements.
“One really great thing we’re excited about it is, we got a grant this year to improve our production,” Aubrey said. “We’ve been using the city’s mobile stage pretty much the entire history of AthFest we’ve always used it. This year we’re actually getting a full stage built and brought in, a professional stage.”
In addition to the stage, enhancements include sound improvements, bigger tents, more shade and more cooling stations. They are made possible as a result of grants by the Georgia Council for the Arts and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Affiliated events include LaughFest that Wednesday at The Foundry, Flagpole Music Awards at the Morton Theater and New West Records Kick-Off at 40 Watt that Thursday.
"We're really trying to make this a special thing for families, for kids to come down and enjoy. We have all sorts of kids' activities."
Money raised through AthFest supports AthFest Educates, which supports music and arts education for local youth.
