You are here: 319 Music Fest

The weather wasn't part of the plan, but the show went on in spite of the cold and wind.

Organizers estimate about 500 people headed down to Wetherby Park on Saturday to listen to local musicians like Rae and the Honeybees, B.F. Burt, Dave Moore and Dave Zollo. By the time I got there, the crowd had thinned to a few clusters of diehard and shivering fans, but you still could tell that the city's first 319 Music Fest was a success.

The Broadway Neighborhood Center sponsored the festival to Iowa City's much-maligned south side. A decent number of the folks who talk about “those people” haven't ever set foot in the low-income neighborhoods south of Highway 6. So come on over, then, the festival seemed to say to them:

"If we can get people to come out and see the place that everybody is afraid of, it will hopefully dispel some of the negative stereotypes and negative perceptions," AmeriCorps Vista worker Bethany Bender told me a few days before the event.

A good number did, joining neighborhood residents for an afternoon of doing nothing but absorbing music and watching kids play. So what if the weather didn't cooperate. Everyone else did.

The musicians donated their time, so did the corps of volunteers lead by AmeriCorps and VISTA workers out of the Broadway Neighborhood Center.

And organizers say they've gotten so much positive feedback they're already talking about what to do next year.