The Heart, Hustle, and Hail Mary of Booking a Music Festival

Will Kendall is AMP's Executive Director, which means his job description technically

includes things like budgets and board meetings. It does not technically include staying up late DMing musicians he admires, but that's where you'll usually find him anyway.

He has a notebook he's never without, full of names and half-formed ideas scribbled down on the walk home from some show, muttering to himself about a band he just watched and whether they'd be right for us. He samples everything. He's in DMs at midnight inviting people to play a festival that doesn't have a venue yet. He is, by his own admission, a little obsessive about this, in the way that only matters because it works.

What doesn't show up in the announcement post is how slowly this all comes together, and how much of it happens on top of everyone's regular job. We're a handful of people writing grants, balancing the books, ordering supplies for the drop-in center, and running a program for young people experiencing homelessness. Then, once a year, that same small team also throws a music festival.

We're not looking for bands who are simply willing to play a benefit show. We're looking for music that sounds and feels like us. That takes listening, and a willingness to pass on a band that's a great fit on paper but doesn't quite have the right heart to it. Some artists we find that way for the first time. Others, we already know, because they've shown up for us before. Ogre and The Mistons have both played AMP events in years past, which is its own kind of relationship, the kind where you don't have to make the case all over again.

The Mistons, AMP's 30th Anniversary Concert (2024)

Ogre, AMP Music Festival (2025)

Then there's Matt Cameron, who has been playing drums since he was a teenager in Seattle. You probably know him from Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. What you might not know is that Matt has been in our corner for a while now. For years, Will has spent late nights DMing musicians and public figures he admires, the ones he thinks would actually resonate with what AMP is doing. The message is usually some version of "I think you'd really like what we're doing." Will gets ignored about 99.9% of the time. That's just the math of reaching out into the void and hoping someone on the other end is paying attention.

Matt Cameron (📸: Joe Mabel)

Matt Cameron paid attention.

That one response turned into a real connection, the kind that helped open the door to funding from Pearl Jam's Vitalogy Foundation, support that has mattered enormously to our work. This September, Matt is headlining Day 1 with Is This Real?, which means a relationship that started as a long shot in someone's DMs is now going to happen live, on a stage, in front of everyone.

Add Pete Krebs, Jenny Don't and The Spurs, Altar Girl, Grolixes, and Triple Lutz, and you have the lineup. All thoughtfully invited to join our community, because the people who show up for AMP deserve a festival that actually sounds like AMP.

AMP Fest 2026 is September 11 and 12 at The Star Theater. Tickets are at ampmusicfest.org.