Photography: Head and Feet in The Clouds

Last Thursday, I was heading to Wichita, KS for the inaugural Elsewhere Festival and Conference. Created and produced by Midtopia, a Wichita-based nonprofit artist and music-worker collective striving to build new models for the music industry, Elsewhere is a not-for-profit event created to facilitate the building of community around artistic and musical endeavors.

The festival component was crafted to be a be a multi-disciplinary showcase of national, regional and local artists featuring an eclectic, genre-defying collection of artists including the multi-Grammy Award-winning emcee, entrepreneur and activist Killer Mike, who not only headlined the festival’s first night on June 21, but also spoke in a keynote one-on-on talk with local artist Rudy Love Jr. that afternoon. Crowd-pleasing electronic music producer Steve Aoki, JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers, TOKiMONSTA, Sunflower Bean, funk outfit The Motet, and a curated collection of local and regional acts rounded out the festival’s first day.

Acclaimed emcee and actor Vince Staples headlined the festival’s second day, Saturday, June 22. Toronto-based jazz outfit BADBADNOTGOOD, the wildly talented Sudan Archives, Lane 8, punk rockers PUP, Oh He Dead, Brooklyn’s THICK and a curated collection of local and regional acts rounded out the festival’s second day.

The conference portion of the event welcomes music industry professionals from around the world to help educate and form relationships with musicians and music workers in the Midwest, an area that’s historically undervalued and underserved by the music industry, despite its rich musical and creative history. The Greater Wichita Partnership hosted one-on-one speed meetings, where attendees are matched with conference speakers and VIPs in a curated setting.

Norton’s Brewing Company hosted two full afternoons — June 21, 2024 and June 22, 2024 — of programming featuring panel discussions and workshops tackling many of the biggest concerns and issues facing the music industry, including how to find your own path in the music industry, creating a fanbase out of virality, balancing yourself in an unbalanced industry, how to utilize your platform for change, what you need to do and know to have a successful first tour, a workshop on how to talk about yourself and not feel weird while doing so, the risks and rewards of a career in music and more.

By creating a hub for like-minded music workers and artists, Elsewhere Festival and Conference emphasizes innovation and progressive ideology that will encourage experimentation, push artistic boundaries, nurture a culture of collaboration, and expose attendees to organizations that are bringing positive transformation to the community.

“As a not-for-profit music event, Elsewhere is reimagining the accessibility of conferences and festivals, both for those attending and those performing,” says Jessie Harke, Director of Midtopia. “This is being done by providing globally significant artists and industry leaders at an accessible price point not available in traditional music spaces. Uplifting artists, music workers, and our local community has been a priority from the start. We’re incredibly excited to be partnering with many local and national organizations committed to social change, and hope that Elsewhere has a lasting impact not only on our local community, but also the greater music community. Elsewhere started as a dream and this full schedule across two days is that very dream come to life. We’re excited to welcome everyone to Wichita and show off all that this wonderful city has to offer.”

As I mentioned in previous posts, Midtopia along with their partner Marauder invited me to be a panelist at the inaugural festival. I spoke on the risks, rewards and challenges of making a careering music. A very humbling experience, indeed.

Sadly, I didn’t have a window seat, so my opportunities to take cool photos from the air was extremely limited; but I did what I could — including this photo taken somewhere over America.