Music: 1909 X SunFest

PHOTOS: SUNFEST

CONTRIBUTED BY 1909

Attracting more than 100,000 visitors per year, SunFest is Florida’s largest waterfront music festival held annually in downtown West Palm Beach. Although 2022 marks its 40th year in existence, it wasn’t until ‘97 that the festival added live music to its many offerings. Since then, the festival has become a major player on the festival circuit with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Weezer, Keith Urban, Ed Sheeran, Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Duran Duran and more gracing the stages over the years. But what was glaringly missing to the local community of musicians was just that: local talent.

“We’re proud of our local musicians — not just because of their raw and natural talent but the commitment and work ethic they have showed throughout our Music Accelerator program proves to us that they have what it takes to make it in this industry. When not taking no as an answer isn’t enough, we’re here to help break down the barriers,” says Danielle Casey, co-founder of 1909. At 1909, we are known for supporting South Floridians working entrepreneurially in fields such as business, design, art and tech — and that also includes music. We knew there was opportunity to get more of our local talent in front of the SunFest audience.

Cut to 2019, we launched our Music Accelerator program. The program teaches musicians how to market themselves, ensure their content is legally protected, provides guidance on budgeting and generating revenue, etc. A Musicians Forum was sparked from the program to keep the conversation going. We went out on a limb and invited the Executive Director of SunFest, Paul Jamieson. It was at this initial meetup local musicians voiced their opinion that the national submission system SunFest currently used to put together their lineup was not representative of South Florida’s local talent.>>

In the meeting, we were able to have really raw and transparent conversations about SunFest in general and the problems we saw with it. We knew this was an opportunity for an organization as renowned as SunFest to not only support local musicians but also local businesses, so we tapped our local tech talent to figure out a better way to expose local musicians to those that can get them in the spotlight they deserve.

“The growth of Palm Beach County is palpable right now and it’s so important to keep our local creative talent and values at the forefront. We are grateful to have SunFest as a strong partner willing to take actions with us to make sure our local musicians get an opportunity at the biggest stage we have,” Shana Ostrovitz, executive director of 1909. chance to be on the coveted lineup. Alongside the SunFest Entertainment Committee, we’ve reviewed all the applications, made our selections, and are incredibly honored to provide our local talent this well-deserved opportunity of a lifetime.

“We haven’t had anything like this before and I’ve always wanted to get together with musicians doing what I’m doing and share ideas. It’s very cool to have all of us together in this space to do what we are doing for the music scene,” says Kevin Ohm, 1909 Music Accelerator graduate & Musicians Forum leader.

For updates on the program, follow @weare1909 and @sunfest on Instagram where the lineups will be announced. More importantly when you’re at SunFest this year, make sure to show our local music talent some love.