Hattiesburg residents and musicians are gearing up for the Hub City’s second Hattiesburg Stink Music & Arts Festival this Friday and Saturday. Stink Fest was created in 2014 by co-directors Michael Peerboom and Mathew Coleman as a way to bring awareness to the conditions of Hattiesburg’s wastewater facilities.
“Originally, I wanted to do a music festival because Mathew and I work as music promoters, and we own our own company (Solid Sound),” Peerboom said in article by the Hattiesburg American. “With the outdated sewer systems, we saw an opportunity to pair the two together a music festival plus raising awareness for the issues and hopefully pushing for a better, up-to-par system.”
Stink Fest is presented by Southern Beverage and is sponsored by Southern Prohibition Brewing, The Keg and Barrel and Glory Bound Gyro Co. Thirty-five bands are participating in this year’s Stink Fest and will perform at five venues throughout Hattiesburg: the Thirsty Hippo, Marlins, Keg and Barrel, Brewsky’s and Benny’s Boom Boom Room.
“I would say the diversity and size of our lineup is the most impressive,” Coleman said. “We believe that this event really helped bring awareness to the problem last year, and we’re hoping and believing our efforts will effectively ‘stomp out the stink’ of Hattiesburg.”
Coleman said one of the overall goals of the event is to ultimately showcase more of the unknown music acts from the area. A few of the bands participating this year include Soup Kitchen, the Social Lights and Criminal Birds, with the Social Lights set to kick off the event.
“This is our first year playing Stink Fest,” said Casey Bourne, lead guitarist for the Social Lights. “We are extremely excited to be kicking off a festival that showcases the local music so well. This is a great opportunity for everyone involved and we couldn’t be happier to be the ones starting it off.”
In order to raise money for the improvement of Hattiesburg’s wastewater system, a small cover fee of $3 to $7 dollars will be charged at each venue, and $1 from each ticket will be donated to the city of Hattiesburg, according to the Hattiesburg American.
Coleman added that this year’s event is expected to be much larger than last year’s.
“We actually made national headlines on Yahoo News last year, and (this year) is close to three times the size of what it was last year,” he said in the Hattiesburg American article. “We’ve had a lot of positive responses, from both (bands) playing and the people that we talk about sponsorships with.”
For more information and a full lineup of bands and schedules, visit the Stink Fest Music & Arts Festival Facebook Page.
