Pumpstock Music Festival to Return June 7
The 15th annual Pumpstock Festival featuring music, children’s activities, music education and more will return to Bailey Park on Saturday, June 7.
East Lansing resident Smitty Smith spearheads the effort to bring the festival each year, dedicating countless hours to marketing, fundraising, and finding and securing performers. Smith said that the festival is meant to be enjoyed by people of all ages.
The festival will feature performances from 2 to 8 p.m. on two different stages, the local stage and the main stage. Notably, every year the festival is opened by a local act, and they perform on the main stage. During the festival, five performers will appear on the main stage and four acts will perform on the local stage.
This year’s opening performance is from Wild Honey Collective. Following them on the main stage will be The Weda Skirts Trio, Tim Grimm and Sergio Webb, Donna Herula and Downtown Charlie Brown, and The Oh Boys.
The local stage will feature John Nulf, Mercadez Kelley, Billy Joe Hunt and Sammie Hershock.
In addition to performances throughout the day, there will be activities for kids, including art-making activities, an instrument petting zoo, Rogo the Clown offering glitter tattoos and a playground. There will also be barbecue from Krystal’s Kitchen and drinks from Sweet Lee’s Teas.
For the third straight year, Pumpstock will feature a music education element. Smith’s wife, Kristin McCool is an educator for Student Engagement and Access at the MSU Broad Art Museum, and came up with the idea to bring in artists who teach.
The teaching artist coming to Pumpstock this year is Elexa Dawson. Dawson has Potawatomi and Cherokee heritage, and will be teaching a couple of classes through an Indigenous lens. On Friday, June 6, Dawson will be holding a land-based songwriting class at the East Lansing Public Library for teens and adults. Sunday, June 8, she will be holding an Indigenous Foods workshop at the Old Town General Store.
The money used to bring in Dawson was donated by Cold Plunge Records. Owner Greg Hill is a Jazz composer and arranger who sponsors the Summer Solstice Jazz Festival alongside his wife, Lois Mummaw.
“We use that money to pay the educator to go out in the community and do an event or two,” Smith said. “It’s nice to do something for the community besides just the concert.”
As Pumpstock reaches its 15th anniversary, its legacy is only growing.
Music has a special place in Smith’s heart. He grew up playing the guitar in the punk band Flush Button from 1989 to 1994.
Eventually, he and his family moved to Nashville for work, and the music scene swept him off his feet.
Smith enjoyed that music was appreciated in Nashville and especially respected the songwriting of local musicians. He said there’s a wide range of artists who make a living by writing songs and selling them to bigger artists. He found going to smaller clubs and watching live performers was invigorating.
“I was impressed with the creativity of the songwriters—such stories in their songs,” Smith said. “What I enjoyed most was talking to the artists afterwards, telling them how much I enjoyed their songs and which parts I liked and why. The artists were all very approachable in these small clubs.”
After moving back to East Lansing, Smith realized there weren’t local venues that highlighted alternative country or Americana musicians, triggering his efforts to bring the now popular Pumpstock concerts to the area.
Smith and his late wife started hosting concerts in 2009, held at the Orchard Street Pump House community center. In 2010, they decided to expand the event into a festival to highlight more artists.
No detail was overlooked when establishing the festival, the name—Pumpstock Festival—is a reference to the popular 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, where nearly half a million people came to celebrate music and peace for three days. That, combined with the concert’s original host site at the Pump House, led Smith to settled on the name Pumpstock Festival.
The logo was created by Smith’s son, Tim Stewart, who drew a picture of an old-fashion water pump, took the fingers on the guitar from the Woodstock Festival logo and attached them to the water pump handle. He also put the bird from the Woodstock logo on the spout.
Pumpstock is free to attend; relies on community support.
Pumpstock Festival is free to attend and possible because of local community support. The city of East Lansing provides a grant from the arts commission and loans the stage, Meijer provides gift cards to purchase snacks and drinks for the artists and volunteers in the green room, and local businesses sponsor the festival.
The festival accepts donations through kickstarter. Additionally, there will be buckets to donate at the festival. After paying minimum expenses, the remainder of funds are split among the performers. Smith doesn’t take any of the money, and every year fundraising starts back at $0.
The kickstarter is still up and accepting donations. With nine days until the festival, Pumpstock has raised $3,669 and has set a goal of raising $5,500.