We’re getting a little tired of hearing about festivals. Especially out of state festivals that we have no interest in, and couldn’t get to if we wanted to, like SxSW, Coachella, Glastonberry, The (Gainesville) Fest, etc. Recently the Atomic Books Blog ran a post about local festivals. We found it timely, since Festival Season is already underway, and lasts from now till forever.
As much as we hate to admit it, the Chop is getting a little old to enjoy festivals, and music ‘fests’ in particular. When we plan on attending a show with more than 3 bands on the bill, it’s almost a given now that some of them will be skipped entirely. Even at the last festival we attended, we showed up 3 hours late and spent a couple more hours in Club Charles and Joe Squared waiting for the headliners. We just don’t have the patience for multiple bands anymore, no matter how good they are.
Festivals are fun. 100,000 Hippies can't be wrong.
We also take issue with beer festivals, which are wonderful, but all seem to run from noon to 5 pm. When we start drinking at noon, we want to keep drinking all night. Otherwise we’ll just fall asleep.
But as we like festivals less and less, there seem to be more and more of them. We found Atomic’s festival list woefully incomplete, and in honor of the Maryland Film Festival beginning tomorrow and running through Sunday, we will now present you with your general festival going options in Baltimore.
Music Fests
41Go Fest
Aural States Fest
Born to Be Doomed Fest
Charm City Music Fest for Hatian Relief
Defenders of the Old Fest
DNA Test Fest
Electronicus Rex Fest
Golden Westival
HFStival???
High Zero
Insubordination Fest Pre-Party
Insubordination Fest
Jersey Mike Fest
Knives Out Cookout
M3 Festival
Maryland Death Fest Pre-Party
Maryland Deathfest
Megapolis
NoVo Festival
PowWow
Philly Invades Baltimore Fest
Preakness Infield Fest
Starscape
Station North Spring Music Fest
Transmodern Festival
Virgin Freefest
Whartscape
Other Festivals
Amnesty International Human Rights Fest
Artdromeda
Artscape
Asian Spring Family Festival
Baltimore African American Heritage Festival
Baltimore Book Festival
Baltimore Boychoir Festival
Baltimore Caribbean Carnival Festival
Baltimore Carnival
Baltimore FestAfrica
Baltimore Green Week
Baltimore International Festival
Baltimore Irish Festival
Baltimore Korean American Festival
Baltimore Playwrights’ Festival
Baltimore Russian Festival
Baltimore Ukrainian Festival
Beer, Bourbon and Barbecue Festival
BitGen Gamer Fest
Capital Jazz Fest
Charles Village Festival
Citylit Festival
Citypaper Brewfest
Clipper City Beer & Bacon Fest
Comic Con
Cruelest Month Poetry Fest
Dogfest
Federal Hill Spring Block Party
Fells Point Funfest
Flower Mart
Greek Festival
Hamilton Street Festival
Hampdenfest
Heritage Fair
Highlandtown Wine Festival
Honfest
Hopkins Spring Fair
Karmafest
Ladyfest
LatinoFest
MARNA (nudist) Fest
Maryland Film Festival
Maryland State Fair
Max’s Craft Beer Fest
Max’s Belgian Beer Fest
MICA French Comics and Animation Fest
Native American Festival and Pow Wow
Nostalgia Convention Film Fest
Otakon
Polish Festival
Pride Fest
Privateer Day
RenFest
Robot Fest
Save-a-Limb Bike Festival
Small Press Expo
SoWeBo Festival
Susie Fest
Tigerfest
Towsontown Spring Fest
Under Armour Running Festival
Videopolis
Wobfest
Youth Media Fest
Zero Film Fest
Some of these have happened already this year. None of them are independently confirmed. They have all happened recently, and it’s reasonable to expect that they will all recur this year although some might not. Hard as it might be to believe, we still feel like we’ve missed a few. If you know of one that’s not on this list, post it in the comments.