Fresh from a wild week at South by Southwest filled with breakfast tacos and secret shows, Thor Slaughter,the charismatic personality, indie authority and music director for KWVA, has a plan: to make a better festival right here in town. While in Austin, he ran around SXSW with camera in hand to “experience the vibe.” But the most important takeaway, he explained, is a new perspective on how to create an experience-oriented festival leveraging the City of Eugene as its venue.
But it won’t simply be a recreation of SXSW — he wants it to be better, hence the name “Better Fest.”
“SXSW is basically the music industry hanging out with itself,” he explained. “I learned a lot about marketing. SXSW is essentially about capturing people’s attention and getting discovered.”
Record labels, energy drink companies and budding independent artists alike, everyone is just trying to get their message across, and for one week, Austin becomes the perfect venue for a marketing bonanza. But, according to Slaughter, “SXSW devalues the experience of going to a show.”
“If you think about it, no one really likes going to shows (indie ones, to be clear). The beer is always expensive, the artists might not even be good live, and the quality is probably going to be much better if you listened to a recording,” he said. “But if you can get someone who doesn’t want to go to your show to go, then it’ll be easy to get everyone else to go.”
Better Fest is trying to change that. It’s about an experience. “It’ll be a cheaper, beautiful hub of radness,” he said. “Eugene needs this. We’re starved for indie music here.” Another draw: It’s free for students to enter the main event.
“It’ll be the most important thing to do in Eugene as a kid,” he said. “Plus, you won’t be stranded in the woods, and you’ll be able to charge your phone more easily. It’s going to be an inclusive event because everyone should be in the cool kid’s club.”
Better Fest is planned for the middle of May and more details will be provided as the date draws closer. In the meantime, he and KWVA are working hard to provide a space for everyone to “be cool” … together.