Skully’s, located at 1151 N. High St.,acts as a popular place for artists to showcase their music. Credit: Juliana Hilton
AtWorkAgency, a booking company working with Ohio performance venues, will host Freeplay Mini Fest, an event showcasing several different genres of music, Saturday.
Located at Skully’s Music-Diner on High Street, the 18-and-up show will open its doors at 7 p.m. with music starting at 8 p.m., and it is free aside from a $5 cover fee for anyone under 21, according to AtWorkAgency’s Instagram. This event will showcase a variety of Ohio-based artists of many genres, such as Kashis Keyz, Plan B, VIM, The Psyche, Freak Waves and MUDD.
Sam Rothstein, co-founder of AtWorkAgency, said the show is a way for the artists to come together and create “a big melting pot” of artists to meet and play many genres of music in a typical show setting.
“I really like putting a bunch of different artists and weirdos in the same room and, like, seeing what happens,” Rothstein said. “We just, you know, saw that there was basically one Saturday left for the rest of the year at Skully’s so we were like, ‘Alright, let’s take that, and let’s do this.’”
Rothstein said when looking for artists to play at the event, he and his team worked together to bring in some of their favorite, eye-catching artists.
“We all kind of chipped in and threw in the people that we wanted,” Rothstein said. “I just basically told everyone on my team, like, ‘Hey, pick a few people that you really like and has really stuck out to us,’ and either bands that we’ve wanted to book and haven’t been able to yet or bands that, you know, we have booked before — we really like working with them, you know — I want to bring them back.”
Since there are many artists performing, Rothstein said he decided he wanted to organize the night based type of music, starting with bands and ending the night with hip-hop.
Rothstein said he and most of his team are made up of current or former musicians, so they understand things from a booker and an artist perspective.
“We’ve all been to shows that sucked or were great, and we’ve all performed in shows that sucked or were great but, like now, they can see things from the venue level as well,” Rothstein said. “That’s sort of, like, the top tier that even a lot of promoters don’t get to see even if they work for venues a lot or work at venues a lot.”
Ryan Gunter, a fourth-year in strategic communications and lead singer for the alternative-rock band Freak Waves, said the band has played at Skully’s before and is excited to perform there again because of its aura.
“Skully’s is one of our favorite music venues to play in Columbus,” Gunter said. “It just has a really great energy and atmosphere.”
Gunter said the band got involved with the show through AtWorkAgency after working with them throughout the summer.
“We worked with a few of their team members over the summer, and they helped us book a couple of shows,” Gunter said. “They reached out to us about a month ago and asked if we were available for this mini fest, and we were all pretty excited. That sounded like a great opportunity.”
Gunter said the band put out an album in June and is excited to play some of their new songs in front of a crowd for the first time and have the chance to hear other artists.
“Playing live is just so much fun, so we’re really looking forward to having fun and just playing our music on stage,” Gunter said. “I haven’t seen a lot of the artists on the lineup perform, so I’m really looking forward to watching the show and being in the audience, too.”
Gunter said he is excited to be in a space with something for everyone and hopes the audience appreciates how this event showcases more underground artists.
“There’s not a whole lot of places for, kind of, underground artists to perform in Columbus, so I hope people recognize this mini fest and kind of take that with them,” Gunter said. “I think the audience is going to get a lot out of the show.”
