Holidays have been gradually rising in popularity all around the planet in recent times, and the bigger ones have expanded fantastically. As a consequence of the expensive costs and relatively remote locations, one or two oppurtunistic entrepreneurs have milked the backlash against the inaccesibility of events like Bonaroo, Lollapalooza, and other big-draw, weeklong holidays. One prominent example of this comes in the shape of Austin’s Fun Fest, which is in its 2nd year. Last year’s event featured over thirty bands on 3 stages.

Many local and nationally commended acts were featured, from punk music bands like the venerable Circle Jerks to Austin tops like the Octopus Project and the Riverboat Gamblers. Massive holidays target to delight as many music fans as feasible by providing an amazingly various cross-section of acts, thereby minimizing the liklelyhood of dividing a possible client. However, the failing to this approach is that booking such a sizeable number of acts means paying every one of them, and providing a large amount of infrastructure. Even in the case of events like South By Southwest, which use usually existing clubs to demonstrate the artists, the quantity of folk who can see a given act is compromised by, if nothing else, fire codes which limit what number of people can be within a club safely at a given point. On the other hand, holidays like Fun Fest serve as an intermediary between the bigger holidays and one off club shows by serving a comparatively tiny subset of the musical crowd with a large amount of bands. Therefore the “bang for your buck” of a large holiday is saved, while many of us are still more content by the comparatively low ticket price, which is more in accordance with a club charge for seeing at most 4 to 5 bands in one night.

Fun also brings a rather different classy to the standard “carpet bomb” approach debated earlier. By appealing to a more concrete (some might say discerning) crowd, the fans are much more likely to be happier with the experience, so making them sure to return. Since their acts do range between comparatively unknown to state touring acts, new musical introductions are welcome and frequently.

The 2006 holiday was (rather hilariously) split into 3 stages according to loosely outlined genres: Rock, Punk, and Electronic. While these definitions appeared a bit fallacious, (for instance, anyone that saw Peaches live would probably have placed her in the Punk or doubtless the Electronic stage before the biggest Rock stage, but the genre-based stage excellences are now not quite so brazen in the imminent 2007 iteration) most would have considered the 2006 Fest to be rather a success. This year’s holiday has expanded rather a lot, most manifestly in that it is now a 2-day affair. It happens in Austin’s own Waterloo Park, and there are still three stages (their genres still based along the year before’s lines, without calling them such outright) but the tickets are a bit pricier at $54 a pop (which does fall in accordance with the seventy five bands now playing). This holiday now appears to be in direct competition with the Austin Town Boundaries (ACL) Holiday , but with a narrower focus. I enjoyed last year’s show massively, and the acts appeared much more customized to my tastes than ACL, not to mention costing less than a tenth of the hard-to-obtain ACL day passes.

Also, since Fun occurs in Nov, the ludicrous dust typhoons and (this year) fires are now not a threat. “What!” you are saying, “A holiday in Texas that is snug and, well, fun?” I say take a look at the bands and see what piques your interest.

If punk music, electronic dance music, or just normal rock’n'roll.