Great Plains Fest II Returns for a Second Year of Multi-Genre Festivities

By Audrey Hertel
July 25, 2019

This Saturday, the parking lot of a local motorcycle shop will be transformed into a Lincoln music venue that will blast tunes from new and well-established local acts at the second Great Plains Fest. This years fest is set to happen on Saturday, July 27, at 5 p.m. in the parking lot of Great Plains Cycle Supply on 2542 N. 27th St.

After receiving positive reactions from last years attendees of the fest, friends and co-organizers of GPF Karynn Brown and Heladio Perez-Pesina decided to bring the DIY festival back for round two.

“It was just so fun last year,” Brown said. “Everybody was like, ‘Wow, I can’t wait for next year.’ And so then January came around and we were like, ‘Alright dope, let’s do it again.’”

This year’s bill includes six lincoln acts like Freakabout, Oatmeal 97, Verse and the Vices, Radiant Bones, Motel Citizens, and Griffoctopuss. Brown and Perez highlighted their want for the fest to be filled with different genres and styles of music.

“A big part of what we wanted to do with the festival was sort of bring acts together of different genres that might not otherwise play together,” Perez-Pesina said.

There is a $5 cover to see the six Lincoln acts that will go to Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. Brown and Perez-Pesina said that Planned Parenthood is an organization worth supporting.

“Planned Parenthood and affordable health care is really important to a lot of people, and it’s important to us, personally,” Brown said. “Part of the reason why we started this festival was to further that mission and be able to show people that Planned Parenthood is something worth supporting and worth supporting your local community for.”

Perez-Pesina said part of the reason this fest supports Planned Parenthood is because of the community the organization serves.

“People often overlook the fact that Planned Parenthood serves underrepresented communities,” Perez said. “So to have people be opposed to that is a shame, because it does serve people who might not otherwise be able to get treatment like cancer screenings, like why are we fighting against that as society?”

Perez-Pesina and Brown said that other than music from great local artists, the one-day music festival will also have locally-sourced concessions and vendors like Cultiva, Ivanna Cone, Badang and Pepe’s Bistro. There will also be official Great Plains Festival merchandise for sale as well merchandise the bands bring to sell.

The co-organizers of GPF described the festival as an opportunity to support a cause that helps the local community and showcase what Lincoln has to offer. And this showcase of music art food and community came to be through the effort the two put in to achieve the success of it. Perez-Pesina said that this fest shows that dreams can come true as long as the person who has that dream works to turn it into a reality.

“I think of as an experiment that shows just how far you can take DIY.” Perez-Pesina said. “I want people to take that away, that if you have a dream of some crazy event, it is possible if you put the work in,” Perez-Pesina said.