Tony Weinbender of The Fest: “It’s a place to nerd out”

Tony Weinbender and his dog, Ollie, enjoying lunch together (photo: Elizabeth Morchel).

Interview by Jason Schreurs

The Fest is a punk rock music festival that takes place in the small university town of Gainesville, Florida, home to No Idea Records and bands like Less Than Jake and Hot Water Music. Started in 2002 by No Idea staffer Tony Weinbender, The Fest (or, simply Fest, as its attendees and bands call it) has grown to host 300-plus bands over a five-day festival, including the main Fest in Gainesville and the Pre-Fest in nearby Tampa. We recently talked to Weinbender about the do-it-yourself and family nature of Fest, and how he manages to pull the festival off every year without compromising his values.

How is Fest different than other music festivals?
The funny thing is the reason we based Fest the way we did, on multiple venues and DIY ethics, is because at the time there weren’t really that many other festivals that had our peers in it. The first time I’d really experienced a big festival was when I went on tour in Europe with Less Than Jake and really experienced that huge festival vibe where there’s people with day glow hula hoops, and there’s these giant tents, and giant stages, and huge production, and there’s a Ferris wheel, and there’s a guy passed out underneath the Ferris wheel, and there’s people camping… and it’s just this Mad Max Beyond the Music-dome type of thing going on. But now the landscape has changed and those kind of festivals are all over the place. I feel like Fest is more an oddity now.

One thing about Fest is the bands seem to be having as much fun as the people in the audience.
Correct. And there’s intimacy involved. Our largest venue, which we’re not using anymore, had a capacity of 1,200 at the most, and it was probably supposed to be closer to 800.

The community around Fest is out of control. There are Fest groups online and these people seem to live for it from the very day that it’s over until it starts again. Do you think about that a lot as the guy who’s behind this?
Oh, that was our overall goal, and that’s how it all started. The first Fest was a community event and all of the bands knew each other pretty much. And it was same with the attendees, including the ones from out of town who were all friends with these bands. And when I build my band showcases I still try to think that these bands are all friends and family, they’re all buds, so we need to make it a fun, fun show. Or I’ll book a bunch of bands who don’t know each other but have things in common in their genres, in hopes that they will actually take the time to meet each other and hang out. And hopefully that will help them out when they go and tour. The communal aspect of Fest attendees, like the Fest Nerds group, it’s almost like a Comic-Con where a bunch of people from all over the world have one common love in life. And you could probably answer this better than I can because you get to actually attend the motherfucker and meet people. I’m so busy that I really get to meet only a few new people each year, and especially when I smoked cigarettes, I’d get off work and I’d have to decompress and drink a beer and smoke 10 cigarettes outside of the Holiday Inn, and I’d end up shooting the shit with a few different people. I’d never introduce myself as the guy who does Fest, but I’d be like, ‘Hey man, where are you from?’ and they’d ask me and I’d say, ‘Gainesville,’ and we’d go from there. But that’s the vibe at Fest. Bands can’t hide out in a VIP area at our festival. The majority of the bands go see shows and end up hanging out. Having the band All play last year, so many people were so ecstatic to see those guys walking around and say, ‘Hey, thank you,’ and take pictures with them.

There’s definitely a connection there; even seeing you around last year a few times, just hanging out and enjoying the bands…
Yeah, that’s the goal. I’m first and foremost a music fan. I do this for the love of being able to help a lot of people, but ultimately it’s a selfish thing where I’ll make this dream list of bands I really like, and on the flipside get a lot of bands that pass across my plate that I fall in love with over the year. I don’t go and buy new music because so much is given to me by bands wanting to play Fest, or I get the new albums by bands that are already playing Fest, and I’m engulfed by this year round, and I love it. I want to see bands and that’s the ultimate goal. Will I get to? No, half the time. If I get to pop in and see a song or two, it’s amazing. But with having a really good staff and volunteers, and good friends who want to work Fest, every year I get to have a little bit more free time to go and enjoy music. I feel guilty about it at times, but at the same time, no, I don’t [laughs]. I could be that promoter guy who hires out another company to do it, and has no say, or heart, or love, or blood into it, and be able to stand around in some VIP area and boast about shit, but fuck that. I’m just as much invested in this as everyone else, and I also have enough trust in my crew to let go of the reins sometimes. But, at the same time, if the shit hits the fan, I’m the first one there: squatting on a stage, holding shit back and helping to troubleshoot things.

You often mention that Fest is like a “family reunion,” which is interesting because every band I’ve ever interviewed about Fest have always mentioned that same phrase, “family reunion.” I’m wondering how you cultivate that?
As an attendee, you meet people. You might live halfway across the world from them, so this is the only time that you can physically hang out with them. So that’s the family reunion aspect, as far as attendees go. The family reunion around the bands is we have a lot of bands that make friends at Fest and are friends for life. You see tours coming up because of bands that met at Fest. And it’s like a family. I grew up with that same kind of concept. Avail was very close to us when we were in a band in Virginia, and were always a part of our lives, and one of the big things they passed along to us is that family values type of ethics. It was always Avail, Ann Beretta, Hot Water Music, and then the Bouncing Souls got in there, and it was like this forever family. And that’s how Fest started.

I remember you were telling me last year that you are blown away that some of these, what you call, “baby bands” from the past, like The Menzingers and The Flatliners, are now the Fest seniors.
It’s awesome. That’s the biggest accomplishment ever for Fest. To see all of these bands play year after year after year. And I know damn well that when they play Fest, it’s the best thing they’ve done all year. Things happen out of that. And it’s also the most fun. And it’s great to see all of these different crews, and I shouldn’t say crews because it’s not like everyone is wearing jerseys, but these communities and families all mingle together and it’s like having one giant park where a bunch of family reunions are going on, but for some reason everyone’s hanging out and being very social and communal.

What’s your favourite thing about Fest?
One of the things I really love about Fest is it is a place for people to nerd out and talk about bands, and talk about those kind of things and not feel like a nerd, and not feel like an outcast in a lot of ways. And music, especially punk rock, is very mainstream now; it’s not like when I was growing up and you’d get called a “pussy” or a “faggot” for having coloured hair, or you couldn’t hang out with normal people because you wanted to talk about Lookout! Records, or you wanted to talk about Avail, and they wanted to talk about other things. You can’t go to a bigger festival and say, ‘Hey man! Have you heard the new Captain, We’re Sinking record? It’s fucking amazing!’ We have true fans and we have smart fans that come to Fest. There’s no way you could pull off that fucking Jimmy Kimmel shit down here where they were faking bands names. Our attendees are smarter than we are. And when the schedules come out and there are conflicts, we listen, because they know. And at a large festival it’s not like that. And there’s something to be said for huge festivals with giant bands and production, but you might only hang out with those few people you know and you wander around and it’s not that communal. Family and community is really what sets Fest apart. And I totally admire other festivals that are trying to do that. What I don’t admire are the fucking huge festivals where it’s like, “Here’s budget A, here’s band list B, whatever comes out adds up to C.” There’s no fun or risk in it.

Would Fest still work if it didn’t happen the same weekend as the Gator Bowl? Because it seems like everyone in Gainesville leaves town to go the game, except the service people and all of the punks, and you sort of have the run of the town?
Yeah, it would work; there would just be more people in town so we’d have to deal with college kids being there. I mean, we could do it summer, because college is out and it really slows down. It used to be on Memorial Day, but there were so many other things going on so I wanted to move it to the fall, because it’s beautiful here in the fall. I love the falls in Florida; it’s like we get two springs a year. And, honestly, it was more about doing it the Gator Bowl weekend because I didn’t want college bros to come and fuck shit up. Because I knew we would have one or two bands that they would recognize and they would want to fucking get in the pit. And that’s also why we don’t do certain kinds of hardcore. I love all types of music and I love certain hardcore bands, and I grew up with that shit, but growing up with it I got to see how those shows can be. And it’s not fun for some people. And it’s really not fun for women. It’s hard. I mean, there are some tough broads who get in the pit and get weird, but I don’t want those kind of shows for what we do. There are plenty of hardcore festivals that we can go to. We still have hardcore at Fest, we just have hardcore we’re comfortable with.

Fest: Get stoked! Get pumped! (photo by Jessica Flynn).

At the end of the day, when you’re sitting on your porch and you’re 80 years old and all of this is done, what’s Fest going to mean to you?
It will mean everything. I’m 38 now and some people ask, “Are you going to do this forever,” and, realistically, no. There will be a point in time where I won’t know what’s relevant anymore. None of my friends will be in bands anymore, and what am I going to be, this 60-year-old dude hanging out with 20-year-olds? Eventually, it won’t be able to happen. And I don’t know what my future will be. I didn’t finish college, I moved to Gainesville to take a job, and I’ve got a lot of life education but, realistically, on paper, I’m un-hirable. And I wouldn’t do this for another festival and work for a company and be the logistical person for them. I think I’ve trained enough people through Fest that those people can go and take those jobs. I feel like I’ve worked extremely hard and sacrificed a lot in my own personal life over the years, and monetarily I’ve definitely suffered, but it’s made me a stronger person to know that you don’t have to have a lot of money to live, and live nicely, and live well. You just have to be smart with what you get in life and use it to the best of your ability. At the end of day, the best reward from doing this job is to be able to see an end result and be happy with it; to see all of these people ecstatic, to see all of these bands get the attention and love that they deserve. That’s really what you take home from it.

What’s your advice to other people who are promoting festivals?
I never considered myself a promoter. I did shows for friends; I didn’t do shows for money. I never booked anything I never cared about just because I knew this many people would come and I’d rake in this amount of money, but there a lot of people out there who do that, and there are some that have jumped into the festival world. Those people could make a ton of money, and that’s awesome and I congratulate them and I’ll go and see their festivals and that crazy band that I will never, ever be able to afford to play Fest, which is great, because I’d rather pay a $100 ticket and be able to see the band of my dreams than to shell out for them to play Fest and not be able to see them at all because I’m too stressed out running their show. But if you’re doing a festival and your first idea is to make money, then you’re doing it for the wrong reason, especially with punk rock and DIY stuff, because the odds of you being able to make money long-term in those things and not compromise your beliefs and integrity, it’s like walking into Vegas and rolling the dice. Var [Thelin] from No Idea said that to me one time and it’s always stuck, and he was using it in the context of putting out records. He said if he went to Vegas he’d expect to lose every dime of his money and that’s how I did Fest and everything else I’ve done. What you get out of it is the experience, and the love, and the heart, and the way that you can touch other people.

Fest takes place in Gainesville, Florida on October 31-November 2.

Pre-Fest takes place in Tampa, Florida on October 29-30.