Michael Stanley, Bootsy at Ballyhoo
By John Benson
If you didn’t know better, a festival named Ballyhoo could be just about anything.
By definition, the word means extravagant publicity or fuss, which in a way describes what the Ballyhoo Music Festival could become in the future. The annual two-day affair takes place this weekend at Harley-Davidson Biketown in Austintown.
“It started out as a fundraiser for a local musician dealing with cancer,” said Scott Austalosh, Ballyhoo founder and organizer. “From there, we had one downtown and then we moved it to bigger grounds at Harley-Davidson Biketown. It’s just grown from there.”
Added Harley-Davidson Biketown owner Tom Wronkovich, “The landscape of retail and the experience you receive is rapidly changing. It only makes sense for us to adapt and progress with change, to stay ahead of the curve and provide an awesome experience to keep them coming back for the next big thing in motorcycles, music and art.”
This year’s Ballyhoo Music Festival lineup includes headliners Michael Stanley & The Resonators on Saturday and Bootsy Collins on Sunday. Also appearing will be regional and local bands, including Stolen Rhodes, Abacus Jones, Chris Rockwell & The Stickball Social Club, Chakras, The Flips, Mahajibee Blues, Northern Whale, Chris Hatton, Geo C & Tha Storm, Skull’rz Bane and Mpress featuring Billy Beck of the Ohio Players.
“The very first Ballyhoo we had local, original and cover bands,” Austalosh said. “Now it’s morphed into mostly regional acts, national acts. I think for a music festival, it’s about original music. It really is.”
He added that he handpicked the bands, some of which are from out of state, with genres ranging from rock, blues and country to acoustic, metal, pop and alternative.
As far as attracting an audience, Austalosh is optimistic the Ohio-themed headlining acts of Bootsy Collins and Michael Stanley will help draw roughly 5,000 people.
To accommodate a larger crowd — Austalosh said last year’s event drew about 2,500 people — Ballyhoo is being relocated to a larger area of the Biketown grounds, which will house two concert stages, a VIP area, food vendors and more.
Looking ahead, Austalosh has big aspirations for the future.
“I have no switch for failure,” Austalosh said. “Everything I do I feel like is going to be successful, so I see like a huge Bonnaroo-type festival down the road, for sure. I’d like to work on this for another five years to get it to where I want it to be, without moving too quickly.”
One thing Austalosh admits is that a larger festival requires a larger venue.
“We’d like to find more open ground with grass and trees, where people can pitch a tent and hang out all day,” Austalosh said. “I want it to become a destination and more of an event, where people know it’s going to be a good time and it doesn’t matter who is on the bill. My goal is to get people to just want to be there and that’s the direction we’re headed.”