COLUMBIA: Back in 2006, Spotify was a nascent start-up, your average stateside concert tickets went for $40 and many fans learned about the best new music from blogs like All Things Go.

Nearly twenty years later, most people find new artists via algorithms and the average US concert ticket costs $250 — double what it was just five years ago.

All Things Go, however, has grown into a thriving indie music festival in a world where live events are increasingly owned by a handful of companies.

Now in its ninth year, the festival — whose name derives from a Sufjan Stevens lyric — embodies the same ethos as that of music blogging’s turn-of-the-millennium heyday. It focuses on emerging artists while prioritising the experience of live performance over creating viral moments or appealing to social media influencers, both now dominant forces at more corporatised festivals.

The event kicked off its 2023 edition on Saturday at Maryland’s historic Merriweather Post Pavilion amphitheater, spanning two days for the first time, with a women-led bill and headliners including Lana Del Rey, boygenius, Carly Rae Jepsen and Maggie Rogers.

The festival’s founders first began transitioning from their corner of the internet to live venues by holding monthly club nights in Washington DC, hosting artists who were popular on their blog.

They held their inaugural festival at Washington’s Union Market in 2014, later expanding to the Capitol Waterfront in 2016 before moving in 2021 to Merriweather, which can host up to 20,000 people per day.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2023