Ska Weekend

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Ska Weekend is a music festival in Knoxville, TN, United State, that began in 2003 with only a few bands and has grown to be one of the largest gatherings of ska musicians in the country.

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[edit] Popularity

The festival is touted as the largest Ska festival in the country by its organizer Ben Altom. The event usually takes place during the spring, but the two most recent festivals have been moved to Summer (Ska Weekend 2008 is July 19) The Event draws some of the most popular ska, punk and rocksteady bands in the country (The Planet Smashers, The Know How, mu330, Catch 22, Go Jimmy Go, Mustard Plug, SGR, High School Football Heroes, Last Martyrs of a Lost Cause, The Taj Motel Trio and Perfect Orange have all played at the festival) it also routinely attracts more than 1,000 people.

[edit] History

Ben Altom held first Ska Weekend at Brick Yard Blues restaurant in Powell, TN in 2003. There were only about five bands there. All of those bands were friends of Ben's that he met while touring with Perfect Orange, the ska band Ben played with while in college. In order to provide more space the next year it moved to Market Square in Knoxville's downtown. Since 2005 the festival had been held in Knoxville's historic "Old City". In 2008, Ska Weekend moved to World's Fair Park in Knoxville where the 1982 World's Fair was held. If you have ever seen the Simpson's episode where Bart and Milhouse go to Knoxville and go up in the big gold ball with the wig shop the show is going to be right under there.

Ska Weekend also teamed up with Second Harvest Food Bank in 2004 and turned the show into a charity even and requests everyone to bring 5 cans of food to donate to Second Harvest. Proceeds from the show go to help Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee.

[edit] Ska Weekend 2008 Bands

[edit] Ska Weekend 2007 Bands

*The final band selected by fans voting on the festival's website.

[edit] Organization

In 2003 and 2004 the festival had only one stage, but since 2005 there have been four stages. Bands are scheduled to play thirty minute sets. There is a 15 delay between each stage's start time, this means that at least 2 bands are playing at all times while the other two stages are being set up.

[edit] External links


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