One of the greatest challenges independent musicians face in their
craft today is the piece of the puzzle known as touring. Playing
outside hometowns can mean very small audiences for performers.
Music fan, visionary and Mishawaka Amphitheatre owner Dani Grant founded the grassroots nonprofit organization SpokesBUZZ
in 2010 to showcase musical artists in her region of Fort Collins,
Colorado. The organization successfully hosted a showcase at Austin’s
South by Southwest the same year. By adding talented and enthusiastic
board members to create a program to assist local artists in building
fan bases beyond home, BandSwap was born in 2012.
Like most great ideas, the concept was simple – take six bands from
Fort Collins with a good-sized local audience draw and partner them
with like-minded bands from five other cities with similar crowd-drawing
numbers in their respective markets.
The second BandSwap is scheduled to commence in the last two
weekends in September 2013, when six bands from Fort Collins and Denver
will travel to host cities. The first weekend in October the bands will
return to Fort Collins and Denver accompanied by the partnering bands
from the other cities, for a full weekend extravaganza of music.
