LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Louisville two-day music festival is back again for the eighth year. The Big Stomp’s mission is to stomp the stigma around mental illness. The festival was formally known as “PeteFest,” to honor Louisville native, Pete Jones, who lost his battle with depression in 2016.
“He loved music. He was a percussionist, and he loved bringing people together, so it just seemed like a natural thing to do a music festival.” Said Jones
Molly Jones is the chief operating officer for The Big Stomp, The Pete Foundation and Pete’s mother says they are trying to rally the community to champion mental health and music together.
“Music is very important to our mental health, so it makes sense to combine the two. And people do find it easy to approach our different. We call them activations. So it’s not just information tables. They get to interact on different topics of mental health,” said Jones.
The festival offers information about mental health care, has three performance stages and has several other food and beverage vendors. This year the festival is moving to Waterfront Park. Jones says it’s all to increase access, making the festival more centrally located.
“So, this is where we’ll have our main stage in this amphitheater area, with the stage right over here. Patrons can come down this way and take a walk along the walkway. And over here there’s a beautiful they call it the Brown Foreman Lawn. And we’ll have our big vendor village over here with mental health activations. So we’ll pretty much take up this whole space from the west end of the amphitheater over here to the rowing center,” said Jones.
Jones says suicide is the second leading cause of death from ages 10 to 35 and that is why this festival is so important. She says she knows her son would love what the festival represents.
Jones said, “He would love it. And he would be so happy that we were doing it. And he would embrace everybody.”
She says she hopes through the Big Stomp the idea of mental health becomes a normal part of our lives where people aren’t afraid to discuss it, pursue information about it or receive mental health care.
The festival will be July 26-27 with all the proceeds from the Big Stomp going to support the Pete Foundation. Tickets can be bought online.