Steve Wozniak has been to seven Fests as an attendant, an employee and a performer.
“The Fest, for me, has been my greatest weekend of the year for the past seven years now,” the 29-year-old said.
The Fest 16, Gainesville’s 16th annual punk rock festival, brought more than 310 bands in 20 downtown venues from Friday to Sunday, said Wozniak, Fest’s app developer, web designer and registration team leader.
Seven Fests later, Wozniak said the community is what keeps him coming back.
“I found this community that I always hoped existed, but never knew about,” Wozniak said. “Everybody can be really happy and be really proud of who they are all in one place.”
As of Friday, about 2,600 tickets were sold, said Tony Weinbender, the owner and curator of Fest.
One of the highlights of the festival was the Gainesville punk rock band Against Me! performing its entire first album, “Against Me! Is Reinventing Axl Rose,” on Bo Diddley Community Plaza, located at 111 E. University Ave., on Saturday, Weinbender said. About 3,000 people attended the show, which was the biggest crowd Weinbender has seen for a Fest performer.
Weinbender said he’s been planning Fest 16 since December 2016.
“It’s very different because we’re not a big production,” Weinbender said. “We’re just a bunch of people who love this genre and scene of music and put it on for the love of it. This is definitely a labor of love.”
On the last day of Fest 16, about 60 festival attendees practiced yoga at Depot Park, located at 200 SE Depot Ave., on Sunday.
After a weekend of hardcore punk music, junk food and drinking, Nicole Nussbaum was looking forward to practicing yoga.
“It’s nice to have a moment to reconnect and recenter,” the 26-year-old Brooklyn, New York, resident said. “Yoga feels like it’s a really good support for this particular weekend and for this energy.”
Nussbaum and other attendees practiced gentle flows and breathing exercises.
For the third year in a row, 32-year-old Miguel Chen hosted the free event. Chen said the crowds at Fest have received the yoga class well.
“People usually seem pretty stoked,” Chen said. “It’s nice because punk rock tends to be an open-minded community and so the people who get up and make it to Yoga for Punks are always grateful.”
Chen, who owns yoga studios back home in Laramie, Wyoming, said yoga is like his second music.
“I really love playing music, and I really love teaching yoga, because I love kind of helping people get in touch with themselves however I can,” Chen said.
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Fest 16 attendees wait in a line outside The Wooly on Sunday. They were waiting to see the artist Into It. Over it.
