Free Press Houston is getting back into the winter-carnival game with a two-day event that producer Omar Afra promises won’t be “just another festival.” Dubbed Day For Night, the un-festival is scheduled for December 19 and 20 around a six-block area surroundingSilver Street Studio. According to Afra, the plan is to combine music and digital art in a way befitting its description as an experiential festival; the unusual word simply means “relating to experience.”
“What we aim for here is the wonder, the jaw-dropping allure, the accoutrements that make a festival fun: socially relevant risk-taking art, and the surprises that catch participants off guard to let the magic in,” says Afra, FPH publisher and a co-founder of Free Press Summer Fest.
Creating the Day For Night art installations will be Work Order, the creative/design/branding firm founded by Afra’s old friend Kiffer Keegan; the agency’s clients include Apple, Comedy Central, The New York Times and FPSF. On board to curate the content is Alex Czetwertynski, New Technology Director of the New York-based multidiscipinary agency Rassa Montaser.
More on what to expect, from the Day For Night press release:
Immersive lighting, projection, and video art will be displayed in two controlled environments with stages serving as indoor performance halls featuring live musical performances. A third, outdoor stage will showcase continuous artistic content including music, original video installations, projections, and lighting. At DAY FOR NIGHT, artists will be encouraged to fulfill their complete headlining acts without the limitations of standard, stripped-down festival logistics.
A blind presale has already started at dayfornight.io; prices are $135 for a general-admission two-day pass or $350 for VIP, which includes access to a front-of-stage pit area with a private bar; complimentary food and drink; a commemorative lanyard and more good stuff.
Afra is careful to distinguish Day For Night as a co-production of FPH and Work Order, and independent of Free Press Summer Fest. As talent buyer he has drafted Ryan Chavez, a founding member of Hands Up Houston, the booking team that brought indie acts like Dashboard Confessional and Death Cab For Cutie to Houston in the days before his FPSF partner Jagi Katial’s company Pegstar Concerts took over in the mid-2000s.
“Jagi is crazy busy building out Houston’s raddest new venue [White Oak Music Hall],” Afra says. “We brought Chavez in because his experience with Hands Up Houston is perfect for our highly stylized lineup.”
Which should be announced soon and won’t disappoint, he adds.
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2015.
