This year’s second annual Mempho Music Festival sets a drastically different music style than last year’s to include more mainstream artists.
Organizers hope to draw in larger crowds at Shelby Farms Park with more well-known artists like Post Malone and Juicy J. This move is in contrast to last year’s festival, which consisted mostly of indie rock artists and local groups, such as Cage the Elephant and Southern Avenue.
Diego Winegardner, founder and CEO of Mempho Music Festival, said he wanted to aim for the sky with the second iteration of the festival.
“We were happy with the lineup last year,” Winegardner said. “We just decided for year two we wanted to go bigger.”
In addition to adding more name recognition to the festival, Winegardner also wanted to balance different genres of music featured.
“More of an enhancement than anything else, we tried to add a little more hip-hop than we had last year because we know that it’s the most popular genre of music,” Winegarner said.
Winegardner said he and his team spent a lot of time creating the lineup. He wanted to give people in Memphis a variety of both hip-hop and R&B artists.
“We also wanted to make sure and create a nice lineup with one of the legendary acts like Nas,” Winegardner said.
University of Memphis merchandising major Sandie Murphy attended Mempho Music Festival in 2017 and noticed the genre change in this year’s lineup.
“It seems like this year’s lineup has more popular artists,” Murphy said. “More big-name artists are coming to Mempho instead of small-name artists.”
Murphy said since Mempho has made a name for itself now, people may be more inclined to attend.
“I think a lot of people didn’t come [last year] because it was the first year, but prices weren’t too bad,” Murphy said.
Several students who attended last year noticed the 2018 lineup is different from 2017 event, including psychology major Katie Fuller.
“This year, there are people on both days that I would like to see, but it’s too expensive,” Fuller said.
The inclusion of more popular artists has resulted in an increase in ticket prices.
Winegardner said he is aware the ticket prices have increased this year due to the caliber of performers at this year’s festival. To address concerns about higher prices, he has set up several ways for college students and teachers to receive discounts on their tickets.
“We want to make sure to make it affordable,” Winegardner said. “So there’s plenty of ways to get two-for-one deals out there if you’re a student or if you’re a teacher or if you’re involved in the military.”
Current U of M students can receive discounts and two tickets for the price of one using the promotional code “GOAT” when checking out on Mempho’s website.
The second annual Mempho Music Festival will be hosted Oct. 6 and 7 at Shelby Farms Park. Students who are interested in more details about the festival, such as its artists, ticket prices and hours, can visit their website at www.memphofest.com.
Rock band Cage the Elephant performs at the 2017 Mempho Music Festival at Shelby Farms park.
The crowd at the 2017 Mempho Music Festival cheers on Cage the Elephant's performance. Hosted at Shelby Farms park, the same location as this year's festival, the 2017 show served as Mempho's inaugural festival.
Cage the Elephant lead vocalist Matt Schultz performs at the 2017 Mempho Music Festival. Cage the Elephant was one of the inaugural festival's headlining acts.
Tierinii Jackson, lead vocalist of Memphis-based rock band Southern Avenue, performs at the 2017 Mempho Music Festival at Shelby Farms park.
Cage the Elephant performs at the 2017 Mempho Music Festival at Shelby Farms park.
Bishop Briggs performs at the 2017 Mempho Music Festival at Shelby Farms park. The 2017 festival was the pilot festival for Mempho.
