Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- The Idobi Radio Summer School Tour returns to Salt Lake City on July 20.
- Co-founded by Kevin Lyman, it features emerging alternative artists.
- Pre-sale tickets are available, with general admission starting at $35 plus fees.
SALT LAKE CITY — A class on the future of alternative music will be back in session this summer.
The Idobi Radio Summer School Tour — co-founded last year by Vans Warped Tour creator Kevin Lyman and a pair of alternative music labels — released its "sophomore year" lineup and tour dates on Tuesday.
This year's touring festival will be arriving at the Union Event Center in Salt Lake City on Sunday, July 20, featuring a handful of up-and-coming artists already making waves within the alternative music scene:
- Taylor Acorn
- Charlotte Sands
- Rain City Drive
- If Not For Me
- Beauty School Dropout
- Arrows in Action
- Huddy
Lyman, who is also planning this year's Vans Warped Tour 30th-anniversary reboot, explained Tuesday that the Summer School Tour aims to be the next wave in artist development. He and other festival co-founders said they believe there's an "industry-wide absence" of concerts that blend emerging artists with fans.
"Everyone in the industry says we need artist development, but few go out on a limb to create paths for their own acts, let alone for others as well," he said in a statement. "Rethinking the way we approach that is what Summer School is all about."
The artists coming to Utah in July have already made some noise on their own over the past few years, racking up more than 4.4 million monthly listeners on the streaming service Spotify.
Rain City Drive, fronted by "The Voice" Season 7 runner-up Matt McAndrew since 2019, accounts for about a quarter of those monthly listeners. The band also garnered praise with its latest release, "Things Are Different Now," last year.
Taylor Acorn's "Psycho," "Shapeshifting" and "Misfits" — a collab with the rockers Magnolia Park — have all received over 15 million streams on Spotify alone. Charlotte Sands' "Dress" and "Bad Day" have, combined, been streamed more than 85 million times. She also secured a feature on the Maine's song "Loved You a Little," along with Taking Back Sunday, which landed in the Top 10 of Billboard's Alternative Airplay charts in 2022.
Pre-sale tickets went on sale Tuesday before a general sale on Friday. General admission tickets start at $35 plus a $5 fee. Festival co-founders Michael Kaminsky and Eric Tobin, also with the labels KMGMT and Hopeless Records, respectively, said they wanted to keep prices as low as possible as "ticket prices have soared astronomically."
The festival seeks to foster the same artist-fan atmosphere that made the Warped Tour popular after its debut in 1995. This year's Summer School Tour lineup is even making a pitstop at the Long Beach, California, Warped Tour event on July 26.
"Summer School's purpose is to support the current and future alternative-music culture," Tobin said. "It's about championing visionary and boundary-pushing artists to be the main stage festival headliners of tomorrow."
