The Music is Art Festival is returning for its 24th year on September 12, said its founder and Goo Goo Dolls bassist Robby Takac. The festival seemingly grows every year in its mission to showcase local musicians.
"We sort of felt like our little gang, our little creative gang here in Western New York, really wasn't represented," Takac said, recalling his urge to begin the festival in 2003.
That feeling of being left out of the Allentown Art Festival 20-plus years ago bore an idea for Takac and his self-proclaimed "gang of creatives" to give local musicians the same platform as other artists.
"This festival started in my parking lot actually, on Franklin Street, and we had one stage inside, one stage outside, in the building, for real," he said. "So there wasn't a lot of crosstalk. Last year we had 23 stages."
Music is Art has grown over the years from Takac’s recording studio, to Delaware Park, to Riverworks, and now for a third year at the Outer Harbor’s Terminal B this September.
"This is actually allowing us to kind of do this all in this one pretty amazing part of Buffalo that people don't get to see every day."
Music is Art this year will feature more than 200 bands across 20 stages, DJs, performance art, vendors and programming for kids. It will run 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday, September 12. As always, it’s a free event.
"It's all awesome, and it's all worth seeing," Takac said. "It's all people who come here and do it out of the goodness of their hearts, and their willingness and their desire to share what they're doing with the rest of the city here."
