HoCo Fest is back after COVID with 95 bands, sustainability summit

But the 2022 HoCo Fest will look a lot different than it did the last time the hotel hosted it in 2019. The four-day event, which kicks off on Thursday, Sept. 1, and runs through Sunday, Sept. 4, is mixing a little sustainability advocacy to its lineup of 95 musical acts.

The festival is holding the daylong “Regenerate AZ Sonoran Desert Sustainability Summit” on Saturday, Sept. 3, with speakers addressing issues from water conservation and sustainable farming practices to reducing the carbon footprint in the entertainment industry.

“During COVID, I think … we all had a reality check, and as I watched the entertainment industry crumble before my eyes, I had to reconsider why I do any of this stuff,” said Hoco Fest Director Matt Baquet.

HoCo Fest, launched 18 years ago by Hotel Congress’s Entertainment Director David Slutes, has occasionally mixed a little politics with the musical lineup of dozens of bands coming from Tucson, throughout Arizona and several neighboring states. But the pandemic and its fallout, including disruptions in the supply chain and a whirlwind of ripple effects from higher prices to prolonged product backlogs, was a wakeup call to organizers.

“This is bigger than bringing a band to the stage,” said Chad Herzog, executive director of Arizona Arts Live which is co-sponsoring the festival with Hotel Congress. “Putting ourselves into Southern Arizona and we look at what’s happening with water shortages and all the other changes that are happening. I think the beautiful thing about making festivals is that you can’t turn your eye on the community that’s making it. … You start to look for what it is that is really speaking to people, and the fact that we can elevate the conversation of sustainability around Hoco is something we can be proud of.”

“It’s kind of a natural fit,” added Baquet, who is part of a group that is working on regenerative agrihood projects at an abandoned golf course in Nogales, Arizona, and a former farm in the Tucson area. “(HoCo Fest) is the first manifestation of trying to use these platforms to amplify the future that we want for this community and for our kids.”

This is not HoCo Fest’s first environmentally-conscious event. In 2007, the festival was the first to be solar-powered.

“Regenerate AZ” runs from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the University of Arizona’s Arizona FORGE (Finding Opportunities and Resources to Grow Entrepreneurs) at Roy Place, 44 N. Stone Ave., downtown. Admission is free if you RSVP through the website hocofest.com/regenerate-az, or if you show up with a Hoco Fest pass.

Of course HoCo Fest is, at its core, all about the music, and this year’s lineup includes two legendary bands — the 1960s-70s Durango, Mexico, rock band Los Dug Dug’s and fellow ’60s Mexican rockers Los Apson from Agua Prieta, Sonora, on the Plaza Stage. Each of the bands will have one original member among the lineup, Baquet said.

Other artists on the lineup include Nigerian modern rock singer-songwriter Mdou Moctar on the Plaza; Brooklyn country singer-songwriter Dougie Poole at the Century Room; rock guitarist Kid Congo Powers, Tucson rockers Mute Swan and New York hip-hop duo Armand Hammer at Club Congress; Tucson Latinx rockers Los Esplifs and Phoenix dreampop band Glixen on the Plaza; and Tucson jazz man Arthur Vint’s Spaghetti Western and his Psychedelic Jazz Jam at the Century Room.

Performances start at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, 5 p.m. Friday, 2:30 p.m. Saturday and 5:15 p.m. Sunday. Friday and Saturday also feature late-night shows in Club Congress stretching beyond 4 a.m.

The festival on Saturday also will feature the HoCo Record Fair from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Club Congress. Wooden Tooth Records, Desert Island Records, Grand Ave. Records, Lonesome Desert Records and several other local and regional vinyl vendors will offer albums for sale and admission is free.

Performances will be at Hotel Congress’s three stages, 311 E. Congress St. Tickets are $39.14 for Thursday and $49.44 daily for Friday through Sunday. A four-day festival pass is $142.14. Tickets are available through hocofest.com, where you also can find a complete schedule of performances and lineup.