Sounds By South Bend 2015

For the third year, downtown South Bend will be hosting a festival intended to feature the area's growing music scene.

Sounds By South Bend (SBSB) 2015 is a multiple location event intended to highlight both the many musicians and numerous genres of the local region, as well as the venues that they and traveling acts use to perform.

Beginning this Thursday, May 7th and running through Saturday, May 9th, the festival will take music fans on a journey through the region, stretching from Colfax and Lafayette, through downtown as far as Mishawaka Avenue. With fifty bands and twenty venues, organizers of the event hope to surprise even those most familiar with the music scene of South Bend and the surrounding area.

The festival is a part of the growing South Bend culture. In the mind of SBSB Director of Marketing Shaina Poland, the city is moving away from less prominent times thanks to the efforts of local business owners, restaurant operators, artists, and musicians, each "taking on their own initiative" to create destinations and events that they themselves would like to see.

SBSB itself was started with that mindset in 2013, as a way to show South Bend as a destination for great music. The idea came from Gus Bennett and Dena Woods, the same duo responsible for The Pool, a space once literally the pool for South Bend Central High and now the area's most unique concert venue.

It's the involvement of local citizens with new ideas such as The Pool and this festival that are reviving the South Bend region, according to Public Relations Chair, Meghan O'Brien. "We're growing and thriving. We have big city features, but small city people."

Sounds By South Bend begins this Thursday, May 7th. Tickets are available at SoundsBySouthBend.com and three free downloads of music samplers featuring festival participants are available at the Sounds By South Bend Facebook page.