If you’ve been following for a bit, you’ve probably seen me stress how important (and how much better) smaller, independent music festivals are. Festivals organized by the people who live in a community FOR the community usually have some of the most thoughtful curation out there. They are the ones leading by example and these events deserve to be seen by more eyes.

The last Behind the Festival covered a Somerville, MA festival with a local flair, NICE, a fest. THIS WEEKEND, another awesome event is happening across the river in Allston (Boston, MA). Rat City Arts Festival is a totally FREE grassroots music festival featuring 16 artists who call the Allston-Brighton area home.

While the Festival is the main event of the week and their biggest celebration of artists, there are additional events this year too. Earlier this week, they hosted the Rat City Gala + Gallery to highlight their rat traps, local vendors, and neighborhood rat history. Tonight, they’ll hold an Allston Rat Walk to explore local rat dens and discuss rat mitigation in the neighborhood. Tomorrow, August 2nd, they will hold a Rock of Ages concert at the Veronica Smith Senior Center to present a rock show from local performers for senior citizens. The idea is to grow into a complete “Rat Week” celebration with something for everyone in the neighborhood!

Rat City Arts Festival is Saturday, August 3rd in Boston, MA. Featuring two stages of music, dozens of local art vendors, beer from Aeronaut Brewing, and more, there are so many ways to support local talent. It is a 21+ event. Admission is FREE! See more info HERE!

To find out more about how Rat City Arts Festival began and what else is happening this week, I sent some questions over to Ricky Meinke, the Director of the Festival. He created the Festival in 2022 and with grants and a Rat Pack Board, has been able to grow the event substantially in just two years. Read below!

Rat City Arts Festival has a hyper local focus, celebrating the diverse artists who live, work, and perform in Allston-Brighton. Where did the idea and motivation for the initial 2022 festival come from?

Ricky: Initially, the idea for a festival came from reflecting on Boston Calling’s lineup. I would see many discussions online about the lack of hyper-local representation and how important it was to stay connected to the pulse of your neighborhood's artists. Following the closure of the Great Scott, I continued to see how our neighborhood was losing spaces for artists to perform. I then began discussing and pursuing plans for an equitable event that highlighted performers and vendors and provided a free opportunity for neighbors to attend the festival.

As rent prices rise and Allston-Brighton continues to undergo waves of development, I felt we needed to evolve our definition of 'local.’ We now welcome any artist that has an affinity for ‘Rat City.’ This means you currently or have lived here in the past, visit this neighborhood frequently, perform in our neighborhood's venues, or work here. I want to ensure the artists in our zip codes are supported while understanding that a narrow focus may have left out artists who call Rat City home in previous years.

After 2022, you received support from the city of Boston and were able to make the celebration even bigger. You also formed a "Rat Pack" of diverse folks from the area to plan, organize, and promote the event. What was the process of selecting this group? Did you find that inviting more viewpoints into the organization affected the end result of the event?

Ricky: The Rat Pack has changed everything for us this year regarding planning our festival and additional events. With their involvement, the festival has grown its capacity to support our artists and performers. Additionally, their involvement has allowed us to have unique engagements like our Rat City Gala + Gallery, Allston Rat Walk, and our Rock of Ages for senior citizens. Each of these events furthers opportunities for artists along with providing meaningful experiences for the neighborhood.

The Rat Pack members already do so much in their day-to-day; some are members of non-profits, healthcare, the entertainment industry, or serve in civic capacities across the neighborhood. I am so lucky to have passionate neighbors who believe in this festival and want to see it grow.

These team members were picked via application. At the start we had limited amount of positions, but after reviewing the excitement from every applicant, I expanded our positions to ensure we were able to welcome every neighbor who wanted to support the festival this year.

This year, the third Rat City Arts Festival, features 16 bands, including headliner Mint Green who played Boston Calling last year. The festival is billed as an artist-first event and promises fair pay for the artists, at or above the industry standard. How important is that to the festival, the local scene and bands?

Ricky: This festival's goal is to support and compensate local artists and performers as much as possible. Every year, I strive to increase their compensation and opportunities to highlight artists of all kinds. This year, we have spent roughly 50% of our budget, close to $10,000, on local artists and performers.

Because of the funding we received, we also have nearly 80 unique opportunities that we funded for artists this year, including performances, beautified rat trap design, or rat sketches. This is double what we were able to offer last year for artists via our festival. If you are a first-time performer, there is something for you. If you have never sold a piece of artwork before, there is something for you. Wherever you are in your artist journey, the festival is here to support you, amplify your artistry, and put money in your pockets. For our vendors, we do not charge a table rental or application fee for our Artist Alley experience, so they can focus on taking home a profit.

Every sale we make during the festival from our Rat Sketches, raffle purchases, t-shirts, and donations, will all go towards our Emerging Artist Fund. This is a $200 grant we offer to up-and-coming artists in the neighborhood. Last year, we raised $1,000 to offer 5 grants to local artists and are aiming for upwards of $5,000 with this year's festival. We'll have tickets to RoadRunner and custom-designed Rat Shoes to raffle off, so any purchase made at the festival from our team will go directly back to supporting local artists.

Finally, every decision our team makes focuses on how we can amplify local artists. That is why this festival started, to make a profit for our local artists. We'll continue to brainstorm, evolve our offerings, and expand our slate of events to keep adding more ways for artists to be celebrated in Rat City.

For anyone who doesn't know, can you explain the Rat City nickname and tell us about what the festival has done outside of the music related to the issue?

Ricky: Allston's true nickname is Allston Rock City, which celebrates the musical roots of our neighborhood. However, our neighborhood is also considered home to an abundance of rats, thus the nickname Rat City. Though we work to address this problem in our neighborhood, this nickname also helps us cope with living situations that may include rats or mice. There is a lot of pride with the identity of being a 'Allston Rat' and that is something we want to celebrate. As a festival name, this means we incorporate rat imagery wherever possible, like how we beautified rat traps or asked artists to design rat-themed pieces of artwork. Our festival will always celebrate artists while highlighting our neighborhood's rat problem too!

Rat City Arts Festival is happening in Boston, MA Saturday, August 3rd. It is 21+ and completely FREE. More info here! Thank you to Ricky for your time and thoughtful answers!

P.S. I get asked a lot what fans can do in regards to diversifying booking. I highly suggest looking into the local scene in your community and seeing if there’s a festival or event like this you can support. It can be hard for small budget events to get the word out, so sometimes you don’t even know they exist and they could be right under your nose. Check out the small venues near you and ask if they know of any community events. If they don’t, maybe it’s your turn?

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