A five-day music festival � #Fawkesfest18 � featuring nearly 40 alternative rock, pop punk, metal and indie bands will be rocking The River Valley Banquet Center beginning at 7 p.m. today in downtown Cape Girardeau.

Justin Aden, owner of local promotion company Fawkes Entertainment and previous owner of Mixing 10, said he began to refocus on supporting local bands earlier this year.

Aden said initially, the plan was not to have a five-day event this week. He said several band members from separate tours kept contacting him and asking for booking dates on the same nights their tours would take them through Southeast Missouri.

He experienced multiple bands and friends of bands contacting him after posting the event details on Facebook, which eventually filled the five days of the festival, he explained.

�There�s one band from Connecticut and one from northwest Pennsylvania,� he said. �There are eight or nine states represented, so it�s going to be a cool week.�

Slick Grip of Little Rock, Arkansas, will appear Saturday during #Fawkesfest18 music festival at River Valley Banquet Center in Cape Girardeau.Submitted

Aden said there have only been one or two genres represented in Cape Girardeau for a long time, but with the city being located between Memphis, St. Louis and Nashville, that encompasses �so many talented people.�

�It is not hard to get solid music,� he said.

The River Valley Banquet Center at 631 S. Sprigg St. will house the festival, Aden said. The venue has been very cooperative about allowing him to host shows in the past, he added.

�The cool thing about that is since it�s a banquet hall, I can do all-ages shows. It doesn�t have to be ages 21 and older,� he said.

According to Aden, there will be alcohol available during the event, and he�s also working on getting a food truck for the festival, �so hopefully we�ll have that going for us.�

The Skagbyrds of St. Louis will appear Saturday during the #Fawkesfest18 music festival at River Valley Banquet Center in Cape Girardeau.Submitted

�And for everybody who buys a five-day pass, $5 of that goes toward the pub crawl for Marcellus Jones,� he said.

Local bartender Marcellus Jones died unexpectedly of natural causes June 9 at the age of 50 and a downtown Cape Girardeau pub crawl has been planned for Saturday to benefit the Marcellus Jones Memorial Foundation.

Each band is scheduled to perform for roughly 30 to 45 minutes each day of the event, Aden said, and tickets may be purchased online at www.eventbrite.com.

jhartwig@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3632

#Fawkesfest18 schedule

Day 1 � Wednesday from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Michael Carnell

Morning Mtn.

Drugs Delaney

Ursa Major

NeoRomantics

Day 2 � Thursday from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.

John Dennis

TBD

Brian Milligram

Jake's Mistakes

The Yesterdays

Slowocean

Blind Velvet

Day 3 � Friday from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.

A New Breed

Glorious Than I

Neither of Me

Thieves To Kings

Hallow Point

Day 4 � Saturday from 3 p.m. to midnight

Electric Bear Trap

Community Sadness

Slick Grip

Down Swinging

Levels

The Skagbyrds

DayWaster

Inimical Drive

The Anchor

The Pink Spiders

Day 5 � Sunday from 3 p.m. to midnight

Something, Somewhere

The Broken Kingdom

No Good Hoods

Sunset Over Houma

My Heart Lies

Voices In Vain

Wanderer

Antler Hopkins

The Wild and Free

Ashland

jhartwig@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3632