VOV festival returns for 13th year on Friday

The Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival will kick off its 13th year in Hot Springs starting Friday, with five straight days of live music.

The independent festival, which is presented by Low Key Arts and known affectionately by its fans as “VOV,” will include concerts and other live performances — a total of 39 musical acts of regional, national and even international origin, along with four nonmusical performances.

This year’s VOV is the first that will not be put on by Low Key Arts founder Bill Solleder, who assumed a position with Visit Hot Springs in July 2016. The torch has since been passed to David Hill and Bobby Missile, who will be running the festival this year.

“When he went over there, they decided (it took) two people to fill his shoes, since no one person could fill his shoes,” Hill said of Solleder.

Hill and Missile decided to scale back this year’s festival from 2016’s lineup of more than 70 acts.

Even though the lineup is smaller, Hill and Missile say they are still confident about the quality of the acts being presented. Missile noted the quality of this year’s acts might have even improved from 2016’s festival.

“As far as this year goes, the level of talent has kind of grown, even with the scaled-down amount of bands that are gonna be there,” Missile said.

While the festival is bringing back “secret shows,” in which the location of a band’s performance is announced via social media the day of their performance, Hill and Missile have also reduced the number of venues where the bands will perform. All of the festival’s evening shows will be held at either Low Key Arts or Maxine’s.

Hill said the reduced venues could potentially help those who are attending the festival see all of the acts that they want to.

“It’s fewer shows, but still high-quality acts,” Hill said. “People don’t feel like they missed anything because they feel like they had to choose between one show or another because they’re happening at the same time in different venues.”

In picking out this year’s lineup, Hill and Missile sought to bring a little bit of everything to the Spa City. VOV’s headliners for 2017 include acts such as saxophone-toting punk act Downtown Boys, electronic indie band Weaves, and cult favorite Joan of Arc.

Missile said those who attend the festival often enjoy many of the acts that come through, regardless of their sound.

“Even if the bands sound nothing like each other, it’ll be the same crowd, excited about the same bands,” Missile said.

As is the case every year, VOV aims

to bring in acts before they gain wider recognition in the music market. Hill and Missile said such exposure to up-and-coming artists is possible because the VOV is held around the same time as the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, a city that is considered to be one of the music industry’s havens in the United States, which exposes bands to record labels.

Hill noted that many of the bands that play at VOV also play at SXSW the same year.

“If they’re playing South By Southwest, they probably are about to break,” Hill said. “A lot of bands have played VOV and played Low Key in that moment right before they signed that big record deal, and a lot of people get to say they saw them live.”

VOV will also feature regional acts such as Big Piph & Tomorrow Maybe, of Little Rock, and Ginsu Wives, of Conway. Although bringing in regional acts is not the festival’s goal, Hill said he enjoys booking state talent.

Missile said even though Hot Springs is geographically surrounded by larger touring destinations such as Memphis and Tulsa, Okla., drawing artists to this festival is not terribly challenging. He said Hot Springs’ atmosphere, location and hospitality make playing here something that many bands wish to do.

“Getting bands to come to Hot Springs is a very easy sell,” Missile said. “I mean, what touring musician wouldn’t want to come and play inside of a national park?”

Missile said he believes such a reputation is what will keep VOV successful in years to come.

“That’s the festival’s future,” Missile said. “This is a festival where bands are like, ‘Yeah, you should play that. It’s a good time.’”