The first annual Girl Fest NW will be held on August 2nd in Lola’s Room at McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom and will be an all-ages event. The festival will create a space for women and men to appreciate noise being made by talented female artists in the Northwest. The Girl Fest NW 2014 line-up includes: Bed., Blossom, Melissa Levi, Third Wave, and Daughters of the Dead Sea, an all-girl Seattle group reuniting for the festival.
Twenty-two year old Madison Sturdevant founded the non-profit Girl Fest NW in 2013. A musician since age three, a multi-year veteran of Portland’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls, and a regular contributor to NW music blogs, Madison saw an opportunity. Noticing that music created by girls/women was given less of a chance in the NW and elsewhere, and that expectations placed on female artists to look and sound a certain way were heavier than those placed on men, she decided a music festival promoting NW female artists was needed. GirlFest NW was born!
Sponsors of the 2014 event include Willamette Week, The Portland Mercury, Mind Set Media, and Breakup Records. For ticket information and more info on the bands, see girlfestnw.org (ticket presales start June 1).