RALEIGH, N.C. — The 13th annual Hopscotch Music Festival kicks off in Raleigh on Thursday with ten venues, including two main stages outdoors. According to Visit Raleigh, the three-day event is expected to draw about 25,000 people to the city, a number that would get it back to its pre-pandemic attendance.
One local band playing in the festival this year is Kym Register and Meltdown Rodeo. The lead of the band, Kym Register, also owns The Pinhook in Durham. The space is a music venue, event space, bar and more.
“Really do believe in performing as queer country musicians or queer southern rock musicians and reaching people who are in the South that really need to know that there are lots of us out there,” Register said.
Register is among the 117 musical artists playing at the 2023 Hopscotch Music Festival, many of which are from the Tar Heel State.
“I think the coolest thing is that you can see a lot of local bands and a lot of local acts and other touring national acts on the same stage,” Register said. “Instead of bringing artists in that you’re like, ‘look at these huge artists that we have here.’ It’s like, no. ‘Artists, look at this huge local music community that we have here.’ Like, it’s like a little flipped.”
Register has seen the event change since its inception in 2010, but they believe the organizers have allowed it to grow in a conscious way.
“Keeping it small enough to do all of those things and to experience being an artist in this collaborative, creative way and also get compensated and the big ‘exposure’ word,” Register said. “It’s hard to stay connected to what’s happening around you if you’re focused on growing or getting bigger.”
Register believes spaces that nurture creativity, especially that of local communities, are incredibly valuable.
“That art that is based on where you are or where we are is what makes people want to live here,” Register said. “There are all these bigger venues and bigger ticketing organizations that are ready to buy us up, but then it just becomes not about our community. So it’s really just investing in our community and monetarily doing that as well, not just like ideologically or like on a bumper sticker. Really investing in our communities is really important to keep these spaces that nurture art and community alive.”
Register also says they believe that the festival organizers work hard to take feedback and make changes from year to year.
“Part of our job at The Pinhook and part of Hopscotch’s job and any other space is to just consistently take feedback and understand who is marginalized, who might not have access to the space, who might not have access to that festival and then think about how you can do better next year, opening your doors even wider,” Register said.
This year, for the first time, the festival will feature a comedy line up as well as a family friendly music event with the Marbles Kids Museum known as Totscotch.
Loren Gold, the executive vice president of Visit Raleigh, says Hopscotch draws about half the amount of people as the annual Dreamville Festival. Of the 25,000 attendees, about half are overnight or day trips while the other half are local.
Gold says variety in type of events, as well as size, is a good thing because it all comes back full circle.
“Having events like this that residents can attend, having venues like convention centers and arenas and museums and you probably saw recently a lot of that visitation money, lodging tax food and beverage prepared tax is pouring back into either building new venues or enhancing the ones that we have,” Gold said.
Overall, Gold says, September and October are two major peak months for travel to the Raleigh area. Hopscotch kicks that off, but there are a lot of other events coming up, including the Bluegrass Festival, the State Fair and NC State football games.
Gold says the Hopscotch Music Festival has a direct economic impact of about $3.3 million. The event starts Thursday and runs through Saturday night in downtown Raleigh.