ALTON - The Mississippi River Festival promises to combine the new and the nostalgia.
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Doors open at 5 p.m. at the Alton Amphitheater on Saturday, June 22, 2024. Headliners Larkin Poe will play alongside Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown, Fastball and FEEL. Nick Bifano, director of the MRF, expects a “festival-style atmosphere” complete with food trucks, craft vendors and great music. He can’t wait to share music on the riverfront with the community.
“The bands that we’re putting on this stage are 100% guaranteed not to disappoint. I mean, they are phenomenal,” Bifano said. “The bands are absolutely stoked about this whole festival — the whole concept, the idea of bringing back this iconic festival and all the legendary bands that played there. They’ve been talking to us back and forth about how excited they are to carry on the legacy.”
The MRF was a regional music festival that ran from 1969–1980 in Edwardsville with acts like The Eagles and Joni Mitchell. Bifano is excited to renew the festival for Alton audiences. He explained that Nick Johnson, the City of Alton and REX Productions all collaborated to make this happen.
While this year’s event is modeled after the original festival in the 70s, Bifano said he isn’t “naive enough” to believe it will be exactly the same. But he knows it will still be a fun experience for all music-lovers.
“While it’s not the Mississippi River Festival from 1972, it’s this next chapter in its history,” he explained. “Just give us a chance. Come hear our hearts. Come let us show you why we care so much about stewarding and preserving this name. And it’s not to steal anyone’s thunder or capitalize on a name; it’s because we wish we were there for it. What a great thing we can do by preserving its legacy, honoring the past and making every decision moving forward with that original attitude that folks had, but also making decisions and course-steering this into the future so that it’s successful for decades and decades to come.”
The MRF team has been studying the history of the festival and working to honor it as much as possible. Their office is littered with old photographs and records from the 70s, and there will be limited-edition t-shirts that share the lineups from previous years. For anyone who is skeptical about the preservation of the MRF’s history, Bifano encourages them to come out and see it for themselves.
“We really are very protective of the history,” he added. “Our goal is to preserve those histories long after we’re all gone so that the festival and the story stay alive, all while we’re writing new chapters of its history.”
As a 2020 transplant to Alton, he said he immediately recognized something “special” in the town. He is excited to bring a music experience to the city he has adopted as his own.
Bifano also pointed out that the F1 Powerboat Race is scheduled for this weekend, as well as a talent show, an afterparty at The Conservatory, and many other family-friendly events that will draw more people to the Alton area. He hopes to share the community, the downtown and the riverfront with people as they come to enjoy the MRF.
“Something like this coming to Alton, we knew it would be a home run,” he said. “It was almost as if the table was set and now all we needed to do was get the right guests to the table. And what we really hope from this is that not only are we putting on a cool festival down on the riverfront, but we hope that sort of energizes everything else that’s already going on in our city…If we can play our part in giving our river town some national attention by bringing in this iconic festival, I think that it helps to ripple out into the community.”
General admission tickets to the MRF cost $25. There are also VIP tickets available. Bifano warned tickets are going fast, and he encouraged people to buy tickets online before Saturday.
For more information about the Mississippi River Festival, visit MississippiRiverFest.com or the official Mississippi River Festival Facebook page.
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