NEWS

Maximum Ames Music Festival is back for 10th anniversary with 40 musicians across four days

Ames Tribune

Miss Christine will perform during the Maximum Ames Music Festival at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17, at Ames City Auditorium. There will be no charge for admission.

Maximum Ames Music Festival is celebrating its 10th anniversary Sept. 15-18.

It's an anniversary with an asterisk, like many annual events that were affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

But organizers say they are embracing that asterisk with the return of a four-day festival featuring about 40 acts across seven venues.

Fred Love, a festival organizer, said Maximum Ames, which started in 2011, was just beginning to plan its big 10-year celebration in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

"A month or so later, all those plans got thrown out the window, and we had to announce we were canceling," he said.

That year, Maximum Ames hosted a series of livestream performances filmed at empty Ames venues.

In 2021, it held a scaled-down, two-night event that was made even smaller by some performers who were forced to cancel because they caught the coronavirus.

But with the vaccine and boosters widely available, the committee decided to bring back a full four-day festival this year. Even though this isn’t technically the 10-year anniversary, the committee decided to celebrate the milestone the way they say Maximum Ames deserves.

"This is a celebration of what I think Maximum Ames has always been about — sort of a DIY, Iowa-centric, scrappy little music festival," Love said.

Matt Woods will perform at Maximum Ames Music Festival at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, at London Underground.

The festival doesn’t have a big budget and relies on its volunteer committee. A $3,350 grant from Discover Ames provided an "essential financial boost for the festival as it sought to return to a four-day event," Love said.

"We know this isn't Coachella. This is a very community-based festival and what's wonderful is that the community has always come out to support Maximum Ames," he said.

Like festivals in the past, Maximum Ames will feature musicians across a wide range of genres, like blues artist Rush Cleveland, singer-songwriter Courtney Krause, Americana rock band Brother Trucker and Iowa indie rocker Annalibera.

Concerts are planned across several Ames venues, including for the first time at The Goldfinch Room at Stephens Auditorium. Elizabeth Zimmerman and Liv Carrow will play at the listening room on the ground floor of Ames' iconic auditorium Sept. 18.

Tables for up to four people are available for $40, or general admission is $15 per person. Reservations can be made online at center.iastate.edu.

With the exception of those two performances at Stephens, all of the shows are free. Unlike in years past, festivalgoers do not need to purchase a wristband.