The 2013 McDowell Mountain Music Festival (MMMF) is coming up Friday, 22 March – Sunday, 24 March and this year, not 10 days away, it’s goin’ down in downtown Phoenix! If past events serve as an indicator, crowds are expected to be in the thousands! The festival grounds are at Margaret T. Hance park (at the east side of the park, off 3rd Street, just north of Moreland) at 200 E Moreland St, Phoenix.

This is a super-duper, like, really big deal my friends. If you’ve been in downtown for more than about 5 years, you should know automatically why. If you have not, read on. Well, even if you do know why, please read on. No use just stopping here.

Prior headliners include The Flaming Lips, The Black Crowes, Ratdog, Gov’t Mule and The John Butler Trio. By 2011, MMMF had raised over $500,000 for local charities. Fully 100% of proceeds this year will benefit Phoenix Children’s Hospital, Ear Candy Charity, and uMom New Day Centers. The event started at West World in 2004, moved to The Compound in 2011 and in 2013 digs its roots into downtown Phoenix.

The MMMF is a big deal. There will be thousands of people, camping, eating, and drinking. This is a huge influx of cash to downtown businesses. But I don’t think people get it.” Downtown advocate and Arizona Preservation Foundation president, Jim McPherson.

Well, we get it, Jim. And I’m here to tell all my friends about it, too. They’ll get it. And they have friends who’ll get it, too, you see, so they’ll share it and… so on, and so on! You’ll all want tickets, of course, and a peak at this year’s band line-up. (You will notice the link in the last sentence is for the new local venue called Last Exit Live. See below. Buying your tickets through there will help a new local venue establish itself.)

The 2013 McDowell Mountain Music Festival line-up:

Balkan Beat Box        JGB Band        Deer Tick             Les Claypool’s Duo de Twang             Dr. Dog              The Roots             Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
The Shins            Heartless Bastards                 Umphrey’s McGee                  Iration              Yonder Mountain String Band  

And while you’re thinking about downtown Phoenix, here’s an excerpt from our next Get Your PHX event invite.

For our March 21 Get Your PHX, I’m very excited to announce that we are going to get an honest to goodness preview of a new downtown venue, Last Exit Live—the local stage which will feature the  McDowell Mountain Music Festival—before they open!

Last Exit Live is the Official Sponsor and organizer for the Local Stage at McDowell Mountain Music Festival this year. They’re coordinating with the Get Your PHX Team to bring you a Local Stage Pre-party and the soft opening of Last Exit Live.

So I’d love to hear what you think about the Festival: Is there any real value to downtown Phoenix to having the music festival here this year? Do you think it will make any lasting impact for our rising city?