BRATTLEBORO — BrattRock is joining forces with Teen Street for the second-ever installment of the event that turns Flat Street into a party for youth.
Eight bands are set to perform as part of the local youth rock festival, which has been hosted biannually at the Stone Church in recent years. With the creation of the Teen Street event this year, organizers are bringing BrattRock to the outdoor stage on Flat Street for the next one happening from 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20.
The inaugural Teen Street was held in July.
“It was amazing,” said Alyssa Hunt, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Brattleboro.
Hunt estimated attendance reaching at least 200 people for the first event. She said the idea for Teen Street came after a meeting with Erin Scaggs, program director for Gallery Walk and creative director for Downtown Brattleboro Alliance, about ways to “invest in Flat Street as a space that’s really a used corridor and a place where teens can be.”
“There are so many cool places on Flat Street,” Hunt said. “We talked about how much young people love Gallery Walk.”
That conversation led Hunt and Scaggs to envision organizing a Gallery Walk just for teens. Live music, food, bouncy houses, outdoor games and an outdoor arts maker market are all part of the offerings. Participation is free. Food and other items are available for purchase.
Hunt said the arts maker market includes products made and sold by teens, and youth bands are paid for performing.
Lounge areas are set up throughout the area. Fast Lights of Shelburne Falls is donating lighting.
“The whole space is going to be illuminated in a really beautiful way,” Hunt said.
Safety is prioritized. Organizers coordinate with the town and police, and will have volunteers working at the entrances.
Local restaurants partnered with the event to offer 15 percent of orders for parents whose children are at Teen Street. A list of participating restaurants will be announced on social media accounts for the organizations involved in the event.
Involved in the collaboration are the Club, DBA, Latchis Theatre, Interaction and BrattRock. Hunt said the groups want to make downtown “a place where kids feel safe and at home, and that there are things they can own and feel comfortable in.”
The plan is to host Teen Street quarterly. In the winter, it will move inside the teen center at the Club. Bands have used the space to perform and rehearse.
Interaction runs BrattRock, which started in 2016 as a noncompetitive festival and replaced a local battle of the bands for youth. Young musicians are given an opportunity to play in a professional venue and create community, said Russell Bradbury-Carlin, executive director of Interaction. He’s seen different bands spin off from musicians meeting each other through BrattRock.
“It’s enlivening and encouraging and hopefully inspiring to them,” he said.
About half of the musicians at Teen Street have performed at BrattRock before.
“This happens a lot,” Bradbury-Carlin said. “We get folks who play two or three times or change their name, so a slightly different iteration.”
Bradbury-Carlin is part of a guiding committee that organizes BrattRock. They plan out the process, update brattrock.com, promote the event and encourage bands to join by auditioning virtually.
Teen Street organizers are “great at trying to integrate this into their event but also supporting what it means to have a stage and group of bands play,” Bradbury-Carlin said. He described BrattWork as an engine of “empowerment” and “creativity.”
“It might be a little anxiety producing,” he said. “But then to have that immediate positive feedback, it’s great.”
Bradbury-Carlin said he also loves to see the musicians gaining confidence. Although Teen Street is a youth event, he encourages adults to check it out. He said he’s “blown away” by most of the bands.
Emily Margaret of Guilford, who graduated from Brattleboro Union High School and attends Emerson College in Boston, will be performing in BrattRock for her fifth time. Her first was back in 2019 when she was about 12 years old.
After the COVID-19 pandemic and returning back to the area after living in Colorado, she formed the Emily Margaret Band.
“BrattRock was one of our first gigs, which was super fun,” she said, considering it “a unique opportunity to play in front of a crowd of your peers.”
Her band now plays all over Vermont and some parts of Massachusetts. She said they play R&B and funk music, with “a little bit of a pop influence.”
Her hope is that Teen Street will expand the reach of BrattRock.
“I’m really excited for hopefully a bigger community to see what a beautiful event it is,” she said.
Scaggs said she’s “passionate about planning” events “centered around community building,” and “connecting people to place.”
“It’s incredibly important, especially here in downtown,” she said.
Scaggs described observing Flat Street descend “into this pretty negative narrative for a variety of reasons.”
“And over time, I have come to view that space as being one with so much potential to be more than what it is right now,” she said. “I think there are some things aligning right now. I think the community has an appetite for that space to be reimagined.”
Scaggs said Teen Street is part of a broader effort to begin “revamping” Flat Street in “a way that is welcoming and clean and safe and vibrant.”
“I think BrattRock is really gaining some momentum in terms of cultivating relationships with other youth organizations in town,” she said.
Scaggs said she sees the biggest priority of Teen Street being a sense of ownership among the youth.
“It feels important for youth to feel belonging in downtown and in our public spaces,” she said, “and it’s really important for them to be able to imagine a future here.”
Organizers have been securing sponsorships from local groups for the event. Scaggs said Teen Street “feels extremely fundable by grants, but we’re definitely going to be looking for financial support.” She encouraged anyone looking to volunteer or be a sponsor to reach out.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.reformer.com ’
