Night Moves outdoor music festival set to rock downtown Pensacola

Troy Moon
·4 min read

Foo Foo Festival is going full volume.

Night Moves, a nonprofit organization founded to give area musicians a place to play, has partnered with Foo Foo Festival to bring some of the best independent and modern rock acts to Pensacola.

Manchester Orchestra, Built to Spill and Soccer Mommy are the headliners for the Night Moves Fest, which begins at noon on Nov. 4 at the Community Maritime Park in downtown Pensacola. The 10th annual Foo Foo Festival, a citywide arts and culture celebration, takes place Nov. 2-13 and will feature dozens of musical, social and artistic events at various locations.

Night Moves is one of 16 organizations that received grants from the Pensacola Foo Foo Festival Committee, which awarded nearly $500,000 for this year's fall Foo Foo Festival.

“We are thrilled to have been selected as a grant recipient for Foo Foo Festival,'' said Night Moves director Robert Goodspeed. "It is truly an honor to have the city’s support in putting together a music festival that we feel Pensacola desperately needs."

Tickets for the music festival are $75. Other festival performers include Microwave, Lunar Vacation, Hovvdy, Pool Kids, Macseal, Fake Eyes, Cavae Mundi, GLSNR, and Palmmeadow.

The band Cavae Mundi is part of the lineup Night Moves Fest, a concert featuring independent and modern rock acts beginning at noon on Nov. 4 at the Community Maritime Park in downtown Pensacola as part of the 10th annual Foo Foo Festival,
The band Cavae Mundi is part of the lineup Night Moves Fest, a concert featuring independent and modern rock acts beginning at noon on Nov. 4 at the Community Maritime Park in downtown Pensacola as part of the 10th annual Foo Foo Festival,

VIP tickets are $250 and include admission to an intimate performance by Built to Spill at the Handlebar at 7 p.m. on Nov. 3. Goodspeed is the general manager of the Handlebar, a storied Pensacola music club. Tickets can be purchased at nightmovesfest.com. A dollar from each ticket sold will go to Second Harvest of the Big Bend, a nonprofit organization helping to feed and assist people in the Big Bend of Florida who were affected by Hurricane Idalia.

“As we were working on the lineup for this music festival, our neighbors in Florida were being impacted by this powerful hurricane,” Goodspeed said. “I knew right away we could help. I got together with Andy Prince of Manchester Orchestra and he was all in — the timing is perfect. Every band that’s playing this festival and every person who attends will have a part in lifting up the Big Bend community.”

Prince, a native Pensacolian and bass player for Atlanta-based Manchester Orchestra, said the Pensacola community understands the pain and anxiety caused by hurricanes.

“In 2004, Hurricane Ivan destroyed my home and most of my belongings, so this is personal,” Prince said. “Pensacola has been through this many times before and we know you can’t recover from a major storm alone. It takes everyone doing what they can to help in the long process of rebuilding homes and lives and hope. We want to be a part of that.”

Goodspeed and others believe that Pensacola rock fans will respond to an outdoor music festival on beautiful Pensacola Bay.

"I think it's a great thing for Pensacola,'' said Eric Jones, owner of Revolver Records in Pensacola. "I think the last time we had young but well-established bands like this playing an outdoor festival downtown was Springfest (a now-gone music festival) decades ago. It's long overdue."

Night Moves was originally formed to give local bands a place to play after venues such as Sluggo's and the Handlebar closed, even though the Handlebar would reopen in August 2022.

Goodspeed's nonprofit would host local bands at various locations, most notably at a spot on Plantation Road near the Psychedelic Shack.

"We wanted to create a space for musicians and artists to express themselves when there wasn't a lot of options,'' Goodspeed said. "Now, I'm truly humbled to make it to the point where we can do something like this for Pensacola. We were born and raised here, and this is an opportunity to do cool things for the city we grew up in and give back the same way Pensacola gave to us."

The Night Moves Fest is but one of the highlights of the 10th annual Foo Foo Festival.

Others include:

  • The "Magic Carpet" will be a colorful 10,000-square-foot display over the University of West Florida Museum Plaza during the festival's duration.

  • "Xanudu,'' a presentation by the Dixon School of Arts and Sciences, Nov. 10-12 at the University of West Florida Center for Fine and Performing Arts.

  • "Poseidon's Garden" will feature more than 300 glass orbs and spikes rising from the water of a protected tidal basin near Maritime Park. The glass art will be created by local glassblowers at the First City Art Center. The exhibit runs Nov. 2 through Nov. 30.

  • Join the Pensacola Children's Chorus and the Choral Society of Pensacola for "Singing in the Street" at 6 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Pensacola Museum of History, 330 S. Jefferson St. And spectators, yes, you will be asked to join along and sing.

For a complete list of Foo Foo Festival activities, and there are many, go to Foo Foo Festival - Pensacola, Florida.

This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Foo Foo Fest and Night Moves partner for Maritime Park music festival