Preview: Pygmalion Festival welcomes teens

For high school students who see living in Urbana-Champaign as a dull, corn-surrounded existence, the Pygmalion Festival will bring a weekend of refreshing excitement. It will come to Urbana-Champaign once again with a full line-up of great musical performances and a variety of other events.

The festival will be held between Wednesday, September 20 and Sunday, September 24 at multiple locations, including the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Canopy Club, and the intersection of Main and Market in Downtown Champaign. The majority of the festival is free to attend, especially the events that take place outdoors in Downtown Champaign.

Pygmalion’s main goal is to showcase local creators, restaurants, and entrepreneurs.  It also includes some bigger out-of-town names in music like Animal Collective and SuperDuperKyle.

Although Pygmalion was originally founded as a music festival, the director and founder Seth Fein said that it has developed into more of a cultural festival with something for everyone to enjoy. The Food Festival has been combined with the Made Festival into one big free and open event in Downtown Champaign. The tech component features the brand new PygHack, a 24-hour hackathon that is also free. If English class is your thing, then the literature festival is where you can find readings from amazing authors.

Pygmalion is also is a chance for students to see Motes, the band of Uni teachers Dr. Majerus and Mr. Mitchell. They perform on Friday September 22 at 6:15 pm at the Pygmalion Street Stage.

Dr. Majerus says it’s a great event for the local community and for Uni students to go to. “The general atmosphere of the festival is just very sort of fun and energized,” and she encourages “anybody who likes music, get a festival pass and just go.” Seth Fein also hopes that young people will come out to the festival because while they are not the majority of the crowd, they are an extremely important part of it. The fact that most of the events are free is additional factor that appeals to high school students. The addition of PygHack, a twenty-four hour hackathon, this year, is another thing where he hopes to see diversity in age and experience. No matter what you like, how much you are willing to spend, or how much time you have, the Pygmalion Festival has something for everyone.

The full schedule and line-up can be found here: http://www.thepygmalionfestival.com/schedule/.