Kitsap has a new music festival to look forward to that showcases local musicians. 

SOS Fest debuts Aug. 30 and runs through Sept. 1 and features more than 20 local bands.

The festival is the brainchild of Jacob and Toni Pierce, a husband-wife duo, with Jacob performing in and Toni managing local band Sun Over Static (it’s the band’s initials that make up the “SOS” in the festival’s name).

“We wanted to pick [a festival name] that correlated with us, but not in a pretentious, ‘look here, we’re so amazing’ kind of way,” Jacob said.

“People were also coming up to us and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, are you guys playing SOS Fest?’ And we’re like, ‘Yeah, we’re hosting it,’” Toni added.

We just wanted to bring us all together and get everybody into this one little community

Putting together a music festival from scratch has been a learning experience, and the couple said there’s already things they’d change for next year. Finding a location, getting the appropriate permits, and booking the bands all took a lot of work. They had to change the lineup dozens of times to accommodate different bands’ schedules. And of course, funding was a paramount concern, which the couple addressed through a combination of a Godfundme campaign, fundraising concerts, a garage sale, and securing sponsors.

Toni, having served as not only Sun Over Static’s manager, but also its booking agent, had a leg up when it came to booking bands for the fest. “I’ve kind of learned as I went,” she said of booking gigs, “and I already was friends with a lot of the bands, so it wasn’t as hard as it could have been.”

Jacob said Sun Over Static formed when he was in high school, but the band didn’t really start playing gigs until about a year and a half ago. “Gigging for as long as we have, we’ve met a lot of really cool bands,” he said.

“And just cool people in general,” Toni added.

But for all the cool places they’ve had the privilege of playing music, they didn’t get many chances to play their hometown: “There’s not a lot of opportunities for smaller bands to build a fanbase,” Jacob noted.

“We wanted to bring a lot more life to Port Orchard and the music scene,” he continued. “There’s not a whole lot of community in the Port Orchard area and even less so for local bands in general. So we just wanted to give a lot of these local bands — including ourselves, of course — just bring us all together in one spot to build community and vendors and everything and get everybody into this one little community.”

In that vein, they see the festival as a particular opportunity for youth bands. And it’s a chance for people to see acts representing a wide variety of genres.

“They range from solo acts to metal to alternative rock, pop … And there’s no headliners or anything … it’s just an opportunity for all these bands to come together and share their music,” Jacob said.

SOS Fest

SOS Fest is Aug. 30 – Sept. 1 at South Kitsap Regional Park, 2729 Jackson Ave SE, Port Orchard. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door, and $40 for a three-day bundle. Buy tickets here.

Learn more at the SOS Fest Facebook page.