What? Music & Arts Festival’s phase one line-up features Charlesthefirst, Mersiv, Veil b2b NotLö, & more

As the official return year of live music, 2021 festivals have been flooding the interwebs since Ubbi Dubbi became the first festival in over a year to host tens of thousands successfully. While certain mass-scale events like Coachella and EDC Las Vegas have still chosen to push back their springtime events into the fall, this has really become the time for small-scale music events to shine. Enter: What? Music & Arts Festival, taking place August 6 through 7 in Columbus, Ohio.

One might be easily thinking what is… What? Music & Arts Festival? Armed with a logo that looks eerily similar to Dave Tipper’s logo, the small, unknown event has humble aims: “to provide a platform for emerging artists to directly engage with potential buyers and gain exposure to a multi-generational, multicultural audience.” In an interview with the festival’s 2019 event director, Ryan McKee, she described the goal as an immersive local event with live, visual, and performance art, as well as EDM and jam musical acts.

“With a focus on emerging artists and creatives in and around the central Ohio community, we took a less traditional route than other events by catering to a specific demographic and members of the artistic community with the goal of empowering individuals from all backgrounds and walks of life.”

– Ryan McKee

Now enter What? Music and Arts Festival’s 2021 line-up: With Charlesthefirst and Mersiv headlining, and the likes of Yheti, Of The Trees, Tripp St., VEIL b2b NotLö as direct support, and up-and-coming jam sensations Daily Bread, Late Night Radio, Artifakts, and more, this is a festival curation staff who has a “finger on the pulse” of swiftly rising bass and jam. Although it’s been said that “line-ups don’t necessarily make good festivals,” many EDM-goers are already excited to see What (and who) is to come on the second phase line-up.

When all is said and done, and COVID can be put behind the world, one thing might become certain: 2021 is the year of small-scale events. Isn’t it time to toss the hassle of 100K crowds and give something else a try? View What? Music & Arts Festival’s initial 2021 lineup below and purchase tickets via their website. 

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