Little Giver plays Gasparilla Music Festival at Meridian Fields in Tampa, Florida on April 10, 2026. Credit: c/o Gasparilla Music Festival
He’s sold just a tiny fraction of the t-shirts it’ll take to purchase the property, but a St. Pete artist is taking a bit of a victory lap after the family that owns long-shuttered Haslam’s Books acknowledged a bootleg campaign to reopen the beloved shop.
“This is more of just like another PR stunt to see if we can get the attention of the family and get them to talk to us,” Filipe Bergson first told Cigar City Sounds after announcing an Aug. 29 concert in the store parking lot. It worked, and the family said people should not attend the unauthorized show.
“We are grateful that so many people still love Haslam’s,” it told St. Pete Catalyst. “We ask people who care about Haslam’s not to put themselves or this property at risk.”
Now, the 32-year-old is inviting the family to feel the love at the official “re-open Haslam’s” concert where songwriter Delaney Staack will play alongside righteous new indie-rock band Little Giver and “The Haslam’s Family Band.”
In a recent “acknowledgment of reality,” Bergson admitted that the store may never reopen. “That’s OK, it’s not up to us,” he added, before saying that fans can still come to the show and be around like-minded people. “You should dress as a book, a cat, a librarian, or a character from a book, or anything related to any of those.”
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This article appears in September 10 – 16, 2026.
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