How a San Jose music festival is pivoting around COVID-19
“In the pre-coronavirus world, dozens of bands would be hitting stages around downtown San Jose’s South First Street for the music-and-art-filled SoFA Street Fair on April 26. But that’s not the world we live in anymore, so the event has transformed itself into the SoFA Music Festival, an online edition tailor-made for our sheltered in place lives.
‘We’re trying to bring as much of the SoFA Street Fair experience as we can into the virtual world,’ organizer Fil Maresca said. If all goes well, the biggest difference, Maresca says, is that people will be on their sofas at home instead of the comfortable couches that line South First Street during the regular fest.
Instead of 15 stages, there will be 15 channels hosting live performances from 2 to 9 p.m. Because of shelter-in-place rules, most of the shows will be solo acts, but some bands have been creatively figuring out how to combine their talents over video conferencing (or in one case, two bandmates also happen to be roommates, which makes collaboration easier).
The lineup — still in progress — includes singer-songwriter Socorra, rock band Ashes Fallen, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Casey Wickstrom and rock/soul/funk band Sweet HayaH. And because it’s all happening online, the bandlist isn’t limited to acts based in the San Jose area.
There will be an art component curated by Local Color, bands will be selling T-shirts, CDs and other merchandise online, and there even will be virtual tip jars so audiences can help support the musicians — most of whom have lost out on weeks, if not months, of gigs because of the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘What we’ve been seeing is that people who are stuck at home and enjoying music have been fairly generous,’ Maresca said. ‘If you’re enjoying what you’re hearing, it’s easy to donate.’
Maresca said transitioning the festival from in-person to online has been a whirlwind. At one point, he had booked an indoor stage and had plans for an outdoor stage where bands could play without audiences and be streamed online. But those plans were dashed when the shelter-in-place orders were extended to May 3. ‘This is a very ‘show must go on’ kind of idea, and it may be imperfect, but I think people understand that we’re all learning here,’ Maresca said.”
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