AMP Festival salutes art, music & power of women
AMP FESTIVAL Where:
IF YOU GO
Along NW 9 at Broadway, in downtown’s Automobile Alley.
Noon to 8 p.m. Saturday.
Free. Details about musicians and the schedule are at www.ampfestokc. com.
An all-female music and arts festival has been Tobi Coleman’s brainchild for more than a year.
Co-owners of event planning company Revolve Productions, Coleman and her son, Justin, had tabled the idea when the details didn’t line up.
The two had held a similar festival at her north Yukon home for years, a 10-year-running outdoor concert that grew to be an all-encompassing community event. What began as a local gathering quickly became a valuable outlet for new or unknown bands from around the country, Tobi Coleman said.
“Since then, I’ve been wanting to put a music event back together, but (wasn’t) hitting the mark on what it would be,” Coleman said.
The answer came from a camp, a blackboard and an enthusiastic community. Coleman worked last year with the Rock and Roll Camp for Girls OKC, a program that lets girls ages 8 to 17 learn how to play instruments, form bands and perform original songs. After the experience, she and Justin knew they had hit the mark: an all-female music festival.
The concept morphed to a celebration of female art when Coleman connected with the Oklahoma City Girls Art School, an after-school arts program for elementary and middle school girls. Still, logistics stood in the way, and the idea was brainstormed and