A daylong music festival is coming to Pensacola next month.
Manchester Orchestra, Built To Spill and Soccer Mommy will be headlining the Night Moves Music Festival, coming to Pensacola as part of the 10th anniversary ofFoo Foo Fest. Night Moves is a local nonprofit that aims to establish a safe place for musicians, artists, and their associated communities to express themselves in creative and positive ways. They have been applying for a Foo Foo Fest grant for a number of years. This year, they got it.
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“We brought (Foo Foo Fest) a concept of what we wanted to do,” said Robert Goodspeed, director of Night Moves and the general manager of The Handlebar. “We’ve (applied for a grant) several years in a row now, and this year I feel like we listened to their feedback and tried to identify the things that they were looking for, to (let) them know that we were all in agreement — that we wanted to bring a cool event to Pensacola in the off-season. And they awarded us (the grant) that helps pay for the production costs to be able to put this event on at the scale that it (will be) at Maritime Park.”
There is history of outdoor music festivals in Pensacola. The one most people think about is Springfest, which ran through the 90s and into the early part of the 2000s. Then there was DeLuna Fest on Pensacola Beach a little over a decade ago. Now Night Moves, a new entry, is about to make its mark on the Pensacola music scene.
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Goodspeed says his experience with the day-to-day operations of the new Handlebar in Pensacola helped get this event off the ground.
“By doing this daily you have to interface with managers and agents, do contracts and make deals and negotiate them and try to plan out the budget for an event,” he explained. “That’s given me the foresight to successfully plan an event like this.”
Tickets are on sale for the all-day event, with VIP tickets also. VIPs get a private show the night before the main event.
“There’s going to be a VIP pre-show at the Handlebar,” said Goodspeed. “Built To Spill is going to play an intimate performance in a small cap venue.”
There are a limited number of tickets available for the show. They are available online and at Easy Going Records for people who want to avoid the online ticket fees.
There are about a dozen acts booked to perform during The Night Moves Music Festival, Saturday, November 4 at the Maritime Park Amphitheater behind Blue Wahoo’s Stadium from Noon to 11 p.m. The VIP pre-show at the Handlebar will be Friday evening, November 3 at 8 p.m.
