Come summertime, Pittsburgh has plenty of outdoor music, from Point State Park to Schenley Plaza and Hartwood Acres. This summer, yet another city park gets its own large-scale concert, as Frick Park welcomes the inaugural Turn It Upstream Music Festival.
The festival, a benefit for watershed-protection nonprofit UpstreamPgh, will take place the night of June 26 and feature top local bands including Beauty Slap and NASH.V.ILL. It will be hosted by filmmaker and man about town Rick Sebak. And it will take place in Frick Park Hollow, near the banks of Nine Mile Run, the stream whose restoration was the mission of UpstreamPgh’s predecessor group.
The site is located on the park’s Regent Square side, and Sebak lives in the neighborhood.
Other acts in the festival include DJ Buscrates, the anonymous chronicles and Colatura. Tickets are $20 for general admission, $10 for patrons under 18, and $100 for VIP packages, and will go on sale mid-April.
Proceeds will benefit UpstreamPgh, which works to restore and protect the watershed ecosystem with everything from government advocacy to stream cleanups. The group grew out of the Nine Mile Run Watershed Association, which in 2006 completed restoration of two miles of the stream, including 10 acres of wetland habitat.
Frick Park Hollow is a clearing located near the intersection of the park’s Tranquil Trail and Falls Ravine Trail, marking the uppermost boundary of the original ecosystem restoration project and the downstream end of the forthcoming Fern Hollow Vision Plan.
“The earliest documents about the Nine Mile Run restoration called for the creation of an organization that could sit at the intersection of art, environmental activism, and community engagement to develop and steward watershed work in Pittsburgh,” said UpstreamPgh executive director Mike Hiller in a statement. “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than by throwing a music festival at the physical nexus of our past and future work.”
The event will include food trucks, a beer vendor, and activities including eco-friendly screen printing and educational walking tours. Patrons will be encouraged to park in adjacent city streets and hike to the site — and to bring flashlights for the night hike back.
Upstream is also encouraging attendees to take fashion inspiration from iconic music festivals like Woodstock, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Coachella.