Tucson’s first “Slugfest” is bringing together vintage clothing, skateboarding, and live music for a one day festival celebrating all things sustainable and local.
“It’s been a dream of mine to put something like this together, or to organize and orchestrate a festival like this,” Festival Founder Trey Wilhite said. “Skate, art and music have been passions of mine ever since I was a kid, so this is definitely a passion project, bringing it all together.”
The festival, which is taking place from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Oct.17, at the Fourth Avenue Coalition, 311 E. 7th St., will feature live music from local bands, vintage clothing, a temporary skate park and much more.
“We're building a small skate park for skaters to demo and skate for the day. There's going to be some art installations made from recycled and repurposed or discarded goods,” Wilhite said. “We're huge on sustainability, so we're gonna have vintage clothing, the sustainable fashion side of things as well.”
Wilhite said there will be 10 different vintage vendors to shop from including Cherry Vintage, TerriersCrypt, Oak Harbor Vintage, Nakosfaucet, Globoretro, Eye of Thrift and Sweetheart Threads Az.
The eclectic musical lineup features everything from South Indian folk music to jazz, blues and psychedelic sounds from local bands Kulululu, birds&arrows, Zeeceekeely, vijayanti Pappu, streetbluesfamily, Molokoko, chick blundy & the tryin’ times, Desert undertones, Desert music project, The infinite conversation, mad ugly and Porcelain Scorpion.
“An inspiration of mine was going to some festivals abroad and seeing their lineups for the days,” Wilhite said. “The Sonic experience was kind of at the forefront of what they were doing and you were seeing 10 different genres a day. I was trying to develop that here in Tucson.”
In addition to shopping, music and skateboarding, Wilhite said there will also be live glass blowing by Sunset Glass Gallery, and food from the Bisou Burger food truck. And of course, the festival’s mascot, Slugman, will be on site in the form of a paper mache art installation.
Slugfest Founder Trey Wilhite and "Slugman" mask.
“A big part of our festival is that we have a mascot called Slugman,” Wilhite said. “He's the curator and the host of Slugfest.”
According to Wilhite, Slugman is an intergalactic traveler, fascinated by human culture on earth.
“He's been on Earth before. He visited- crash landed, if you will- back in like the '90s, Y2K, and he found refuge amongst like the skate parks, and was just sort of hiding out, watching all these humans attempt trick after trick with little success,” he said. “Then when they finally land something, they'd all go crazy, and he thought it was so interesting because back where he's from, you know the creatures and critters on his home planet don't really go that route. They just sort of attempt once, and if they fail, they're done with it.”
All of Slugman’s diary entries and experiences on Earth are documented on the festival website.
Wilhite said in the future, he hopes to see Slugfest become a yearly tradition, and he would love to create other similar events to engage the local Tucson community.
“We are certainly looking forward to the future with bright eyes, trying to make this an annual festival,” Wilhite said.
For now though, he said he is excited for people to experience the first Slugfest.
“I want people to leave and realize their own innate creativity, and realize that they can also create things with their hands and without guidance,” Wilhite said. “Just make art for the sake of art, make it human, make it imperfect, and just let it exist.”
Tickets for the event are $32. For more information on vendors and activities visit the Slugfest website.
