A vision of Wichita as a ‘Somewhere’: Eclectic music and arts festival returns for second year
After debuting last year as Elsewhere Fest, the two-day festival and conference is back this weekend with a new name, fewer stages, same ambition.
A cadre of well-connected local arts leaders envision Wichita as a place where musical talent can thrive. You could say they want Wichita to be a “somewhere.”
That vision is embodied by the now-annual music and visual arts event coming to downtown Friday and Saturday (June 13-14). Newly rebranded as Somewhere Fest and Conference after debuting last year as Elsewhere Fest, the event brings in nationally respected musical talent for concerts and similarly well-established industry experts for panel discussions. It also showcases local musical talent and creators, including free public art installations courtesy of festival partner Harvester Arts.
Headliners for the ticketed elements of the show include Texas rapper Bigxthaplug, electronic producer Deadmau5, pop artist and actress Suki Waterhouse and multi-genre artist and producer Flying Lotus. With the notable exception of Americana-leaning acts that operate in the modern roots or country music spaces, the Somewhere Fest lineup is all across the board.
Rudy Love Jr., who will perform at the festival, inherited his soul and funk sounds from his father, the Wichita native and one-time Motown artist Rudy Love Sr. And while the younger artist’s band is called The Encore as an homage to the late great Wichitan, Love Jr. has pushed his own music in new directions, too.
Like his music, he called the festival “genre agnostic” and even “genre destroying.”
“The average Wichita band is doing a really good job of (blending genres) right now,” Love said. They are also “cross-pollinating,” he said — working together on recordings and sharing expertise to help the community.
During the festival, Love will play with co-headliner Aloe Blacc, and perform a separate set with The Encore. He also hinted at a secret show that he doesn’t expect will ever be announced — it will just happen, and lucky fans will have to discover it.
“I just know that people are going to have the kind of time they never expected to have in Wichita,” he said.
Bands were chosen to fit the genre-free idea of the festival as well as the physical confines of the venues that are being used. It’s also important that the artists have social change at heart.
As an example, festival co-organizer Jessie Hartke, of presenting organization Midtopia, pointed to the Saturday shows at Wave, where all performances are by female-fronted bands. Established acts like Shannon and the Clams play outside at Wave. Meanwhile, emerging artists like Talia Keys and Elise Trouw play indoors during the interludes between the outdoor shows. Respectively, the latter two artists are particularly strong advocates for LGBTQ rights and women’s issues, Hartke said.
Less than a week before Somewhere Fest opens, festival co-organizer (and partner to Jessie Hartke) Adam Hartke said he’s only worried about not being able to see everything that happens during the festival because too many exciting events overlap. What is happening during the festival is becoming clearer as the schedule has been unveiled piece by piece in the past week.
The most prominent component is music, hosted at Wave and along Emporia Avenue in spaces called the Where Else Stage, the Somewhere Streets and the Where House. The latter, located at 226 N. Emporia Ave., is inside one of more than a dozen downtown properties purchased in recent years by musician and philanthropist Chase Koch, who co-organized the festival with the Hartkes.
Chase Koch was not made available for interviews prior to the festival, with festival organizers citing his busy schedule in the weeks leading up to the event.
Overlapping sets of music take place at the various venues, roughly from 4 p.m. to midnight both evenings. Much of the festival footprint is ticketed, but admission to the Where House is free. It’s also where a warehouse-sized art installation by local artists Mike and Meghan Miller will be on view.
Other free-to-the-public elements of the festival include a block party with an epicenter of East Second Street and North St. Francis Avenue. Just to the block party’s southeast is the Taste of Somewhere event, featuring nearly 20 food trucks. Operating hours for the food trucks have not been publicized.
Hartke said the festival is locally produced, although officials confirmed that the New York City-based music promotion agency Marauder assisted with the conference portion of the event. Local crews are setting up the venues, local agencies are working to promote the festival and local food trucks are invited to set up inside the Taste of Somewhere event. That’s the central idea behind Midtopia, he said — creating a future state that keeps Wichita artisans in Wichita.
“It’s geared toward a vision of the future where people can sustain themselves with their craft,” he said.
That creates opportunities in the local economy, Adam Hartke said, noting that out-of-town companies who operate festivals often sweep into town with their own crews and leave minimal impact in their wake. Those companies are finding it hard to sustain themselves, and many festivals are struggling with attendance or even closing altogether. According to estimates provided by Somewhere Fest organizers, approximately 50 percent of festival attendees come from Wichita, and the vast majority of the remainder from surrounding states. Fans from 36 different states attended the Elsewhere Fest in year one.
“The entire model (for Somewhere Fest) is different than other festivals out there,” he said.
The model is designed and promoted by Midtopia, an organization that bills itself as a nonprofit “think tank” for independent musicians, and Stand Together Music, a nonprofit social change organization. Both are products of the vast Koch network, a philanthropic and political advocacy effort founded by Koch Industries co-CEO Charles Koch and his late brother David. The organization rebranded as Stand Together in 2019.
A longtime music fan, Chase Koch, executive vice president of Koch Industries and Charles Koch’s son, founded Stand Together Music, which seeks to unite musicians in the support of causes like recovery from addiction, the promotion of free speech and ending the war on drugs. Chase Koch has played in various musical groups over the years, including with his current band 2Lot, which will appear live at Somewhere Fest supporting Aloe Blacc, a friend of Koch’s. It’s a firmly established partnership, with Blacc asking 2Lot to be his backing band on a New Year’s Day performance on Good Morning America. They performed the title track on Blacc’s latest release, the February 2025 album called ... “Stand Together.”
Those connections are omnipresent at Somewhere Fest. Blacc is the keynote speaker at the conference portion of the proceedings. 2Lot multi-instrumentalist Rudy Love Jr., who serves on the Midtopia board of directors, will also perform at Somewhere Fest with his own group. Likewise, 2Lot bass player Robert Trusko will have a set with his own band (performing as Trusko) in addition to backing Aloe Blacc. Several of the social causes highlighted by the festival overlap with those of Stand Together, such as the substance abuse recovery resource 1 Million Strong and the free speech organization Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Similarly, the festival lineup is dotted with artists represented by Midtopia, such as Jesus Christ Taxi Driver, Social Cinema, The Whips, Talia Keys and Paris Jane. Midtopia-aligned artists make up nearly 20 percent of the roster.
To some, that may seem a bit incestuous. But Love says the approach is the reason he’s now in Wichita. He left for Los Angeles because he simply couldn’t make enough money gigging around the middle of the country. Back in Wichita full time now, he’s performing throughout the region and gearing up to release an album with The Encore. It’s titled “11” because the album was 11 years in the making when it was finally recorded. As an artist service agency, Midtopia helped guide the process, which included recording on an analog console instead of a digital one to help capture the band’s throwback sound.
“It’s just the way that we dreamed of, in exactly the style that we wanted,” Love said.
His career and ability to return to Wichita is directly related to focused efforts to turn Wichita into the “Somewhere” of the organizer’s dreams, he said.
Jessie Hartke dismissed the idea that the festival is a vanity project for Koch. She said that art requires considerable investment to succeed, mentioning the wealthy families of Italy and the Renaissance-era works they made possible.
“We wouldn’t have had the Renaissance without people understanding that art is imperative for cultural growth. ... We need folks to believe in us to allow change to occur, and we’re lucky enough in Wichita to have an opportunity like that,” she said.
Stand Together funding helps create a financially sustainable ecosphere, she said. The festival operates as a nonprofit event, meaning that it does not require a windfall to justify its next iteration. As such, Jessie Hartke said Somewhere Fest can offer festival passes at a price that’s less than what others charge for a comparably sized festival with comparably well-known artists.
Adam Hartke hears the wariness from some potential guests, too.
“Any time there’s change, it scares people. We’ve encountered this our whole existence in this city. Any time we did something new, there were people who supported it, and there were people who tore it down. ... and typically, what we’ve seen is people who like it are those who approach it with an open mind. The ones who tear it down are the ones who want things to stay the same.” he said.
There are certainly non-Midtopia artists in Wichita who are seeing the benefits. Take Wichita native Monica Siegman, who performs as the indie pop artist Monnie. Her festival set takes place at 6:15 p.m. Saturday at Somewhere Works, a Midtopia-owned venue/rehearsal space at 235 N. Emporia Ave.
Siegman once performed at local coffee shops under her own name but debuted the larger-scale Monnie project first with an EP called “I’ll Be Here When You Wake Up” in 2022 and then with her first live performance in November 2024. Her set Saturday will be her second ever under the “Monnie” moniker. She describes Monnie as the product of the realization that her music career wasn’t a pipe dream, but something she could achieve.
“I always knew that I wanted a bigger thing, with cohesive branding, and that I wanted to have a band,” she said.
A Wichita native, Siegman works in marketing while she tries to close the gap between the income she currently makes from her day job and what she makes as a musician. The EP helped narrow it, and new music she’s working on now should, too.
For most of her life, Siegman believed that a musical career and living in Wichita were incompatible. She senses otherwise as she nears the time when music will fully be her pursuit.
“In the past few years, (the Wichita community is) really putting in the effort,” she said. “We have people here making really cool stuff, and we need to celebrate it.”
That’s the hope for the Hartkes, less than a week out from the start of the festival.
“We tried to create the kind of event our community needs,” Jessie Hartke said.
And hopefully, it’s somewhere musicians and fans want to be, too.
The Details
Somewhere Fest and Conference
June 13-14, 2025
The second installation of the eclectic music and visual arts event called the Somewhere Fest and Conference returns after debuting in 2024 as Elsewhere Fest. About 40 bands will perform over the course of two days.
A related music industry conference begins at 10 a.m. Friday, June 13, at Groover Labs, 334 St. Francis Ave.
The first music acts — DJ Sunshine and Oxford Remedy — simultaneously begin at 4:15 p.m. Friday. Acts perform roughly from 4 p.m. to midnight at various downtown venues situated along or immediately south of East Second Street between North Emporia and North Santa Fe avenues. Music officially concludes at 1:45 a.m. Sunday, June 15, at an official festival after party.
Several events are open to those without tickets, including installations by Harvester Arts and a Taste of Somewhere event featuring local food trucks.
Check-in for the festival is near the intersection of North St. Francis Avenue and East Second Street.
Single-day general admission passes are $84.93 (a price that includes all taxes and fees) and a two-day pass is $138.68. VIP passes are also available.
Kevin Kinder never learned to play an instrument but has written about music for more than two decades just the same. He’s a freelance writer and journalism educator.
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