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Please find the Friday Guest Blog below, this was written by Shawn Harrington

The line-up is now set, the plans for Fourth of July weekend are being put into place. This year will be the first year for many to make their way to the Western Gateway for the festival, there’s sure to many returning visitors from the crouds of 25,000+ that have attended each of the past two years.  For the third year in a row, we are now getting to that time when the buzz starts growing for the countdown to 80/35.

Many of you have already seen the line-up, which is now complete.  This always brings about much discussion because for as many bands that you are familiar with or buying your tickets for, there’s always that handful of bands you are looking at the name and asking “who’s this?”.  Keeping that in mind brings about the beauty of the multi-stage music festival environment, where one can experience for the first time the new sounds of well over 30 bands in two days.  This does come as the surprise when you come down to check out one band and fall in love with another as many were saying in 2008-09 after hearing acts like Ingrid Michaelson and Man Man for the first time.

Another element that may shock you  is when someone will be bumping through the crowd and is stopped by the performance of a band they’ve never seen before to find out they could be from their own local scene.  This could be the case as this year’s line-up includes Des Moines’ native acts such as Cashes Rivers, Cleo’s Apartment, and Christopher the Conquered.  These bands have rocked many indoor shows of late and when they take the stage, whether its their own fans or not, no one leaves the room!

Without the crowds of their own dedicated fans that will be traveling into Des Moines, the bands in the 80/35 line-up wouldn’t have made the cut.  Having trouble believing me?  Don’t forget we are still in an age of Myspace pages and itunes, so check them out for yourself.

Here’s some additional announcements for 80/35 that you should know:

The YPC Do More Village: This area along Locust Street will once again be made up primarily of non-profit & community organizations.  Applications are due this Wednesday, the 16th, and can be found here.  These can be submitted directly to me at impactdowntown@ypcdsm.com

Sponsorship & Vendor Opportunities: Contact Justin@desmoinesmc.com

Save on Tickets TODAY: Go to Midwestix.com today (June 11th) between 10am-10pm and your ticket fee will be waived.  This will average out to a discount between $5.65-$9.65 for each ticket purchased.

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