Now going into its sixth year, Echo Park Rising is one of the biggest and best of the free summer festivals. If you haven’t made it out before, try to imagine the best block party ever, sprawling out across an entire neighborhood, mixed with a tiny version of Austin’s South by Southwest music festival in which every nightclub, bar, coffee shop or vacant space suddenly transforms into a pop-up concert venue.
The concert stages are stacked with the best and brightest of LA-based artists, spanning across genres. Stand-out names from the initial round of announcements include local favorites Chicano Batman, La Luz, the Weirdos, Harriet Brown and Feels. Over the course of the three days, hundreds of bands, DJs, stand-up comedians and other performers will have their moment on stages indoors and out.
Basically, it’s a weekend to put on your hippest festival style fashions and see every cool, shaggy-hair-sporting young band in the LA scene. Take a bunch of Instagrams of the baby bands while you can, by the way, because next year they’ll probably break out and you’ll want evidence to back up your smug comments about how you saw them play a tiny café for free way before they got big.
Headlining artists will be on an outdoor stage erected at the corner of Liberty and Reservoir streets near the Taix French Restaurant. Two new performance spaces will be added for 2016 at the Whisperer and Semi-Tropic in addition to last year’s locales. Each day, some 10,000 music fans and casual observers of all ages will filter through the festival.
While the festival is free, proceeds raised from merchandise sales and VIP passes will go toward funding a new Business Improvement District for Echo Park, according to a press release from the festival.
Echo Park Rising 2016 takes place Aug 18 to 21 at various venues around the Echo Park neighborhood. General admission is free and all-ages, with VIP passes available for $21-$30.
