Free Press Summer Fest Schedule, Now Online (and Yes, Fun to Play With, Too)

Got word today that yes, the official-schmofficial schedule for this year’s Free Press Summer Fest is now online. Hell yeah, people — now is the time to begin making your plans for who you’re going to see and when.

There’s a cool little dynamic schedule-builder deal again this year, and this time around it’s a bit more usable than the previous one (I think, anyway). I was leery at first, because it asks you for access to your Facebook profile — no clue what it does if you don’t have one — but I have to say, I’m liking it quite a bit.

You select the little stars next to the bands you want to see, and then you can see your favorite bands by stage or in a handy-dandy timeline, which definitely helps if you, like me, want to see about a bazillion different bands & musicians (and which indicates that I’m going to be running from stage to stage between noon and 1PM on Saturday; sigh). Of course, trying to see everybody awesome is going to be damn near impossible unless you clone yourself, but sometimes drastic measures are required, right?

Best of all, it appears that the schedule remembers what you’ve selected, so you can leave the site and then come back and not re-select everybody you like. Sweeeeeeet. The only thing I’m not finding that would make the app more useful is the ability to print or export out my timeline/schedule, preferably in a compact, easy-to-pocket format. But hey, there’s reportedly a mobile app on the way(!), which sounds very promising for yours truly, since I fucked up ridiculously last year and didn’t even bring a printed schedule for Day One.

Along with the schedule, btw, the FPSF organizers have added some new folks to the list, like H-town recluse/weirdball {Jandek}. (I’m a little torn to see him on the list, honestly, because I really-truly love the mysteriousness, but at the same time, hey, maybe I can actually finally see the guy live…)

And if you don’t already have your tickets, well, you’d better get on it, because word is that they’re close to selling out. Holy fucking wow. Granted, that makes my twitchy-around-people self a little nervous, given that the crowds in years past have already gotten massive, but I have faith that the {Free Press Houston} folk will have things well in hand. As far as festivals like this go, they’re one of the few I’ve run across where they seem willing to actively change what they’re doing and how they’re doing it if it isn’t working at a given moment (i.e., last year’s Day One bottleneck between the merch tent and the Jeep track, which had vanished almost completely on Day Two after some creative rearranging).

I also discovered today that kids under 5 get in free. Whoa. And now I’m seriously wondering how feasible it’d be for me to drag my 3-year-old hellion Little Dude out to see a bunch of loud, heavy bands for 8+ hours in the Houston heat, so he can Get His Dance On and rock out. (Answer: um, not very, at least not if I want to avoid divorce court and/or the hospital. But one can dream…)

Now that this thing’s within spitting distance, by the by — June 1st & 2nd aren’t that far away, people — your friends here at SCR will shortly be starting to do our now-traditional randomly-selected previews of as many of the bands attending as humanly possible. Stay tuned for more on that, y’all.