Photograph by Kiara Vaziri
“We’re really trying to bring as many exciting young up and coming artists who really have something to say together and give them a platform.” That’s the mission statement of the idobi Radio Summer School Tour, a traveling, multi-genre music festival, inspired by Lollapalooza.
Summer School, founded by Hopeless Record Executive VP of A&R and Business Development Eric Tobin and KMGMT CEO Michael Kaminsky, embarks on its second annual tour this summer and will be making a stop at Newport’s MegaCorp Pavilion on July 15. The one-day festival will be headlined by several independent artists, including Rain City Drive, Taylor Acorn, and Charlotte Sands
Although only on its second tour, Summer School’s origins date several years earlier with Tobin and Kaminsky, best friends with 20 years of music administration experience under their belts. Kaminsky had been working on traveling rock festival Warped Tour when it ceased operations in 2019, and the two began considering how to fill the gap it left.
“The lack of presence was really felt, and there were a lot of artists who felt like they were hitting a glass ceiling just doing their own thing,” says Kaminsky. “We wanted to bring back this feeling of community that gets people excited. The most successful parts of music happen when there’s a real community built around it.”
An important building block to this new idea, according to Kaminsky, was affordability. “We thought, if we’re going to go out and do this, we want people to be able to actually see all these artists. We wanted to put on a full package of artists at a ticket price of $35 or less.”
To achieve their goals, Kaminsky and Tobin carefully recruited several partners, making a concerted effort to “not just parcel off sponsorships to go slap someone’s name on this thing… We wanted everyone working on this thing to actually be able to help the fans and the artists.”
These partners included Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman, and the team at idobi radio.
According to Tobin, talent for the tour was selected with Summer School’s values in mind, prioritizing rising artists from the pop/alt community.
Charlotte Sands, a pop/rock singer-songwriter with nearly 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify, was one of those chosen to headline the tour. Sands names Bonnie Raitt, Alanis Morissette, and Avril Lavigne as her music influences, and says she was delighted when Summer School reached out to her about headlining the tour. “The conversation around it was just such a breath of fresh air when it comes to touring, because they really wanted to create something that was beneficial for the artists as well as the audience. I was excited from the jump.”
Sands notes that the unique nature of the sheer quantity of artists featured on the Summer School Tour offers a significant opportunity for new and rising artists. “I’m good friends with a lot of the other [artists], so it’s gonna feel like summer camp.”
Tobin says that Summer School will platform diverse genres, with the hope of building the alternative music scene and expanding the musical horizons of the audience. “For a long time, the alt scene was defined by these very specific genres, like indie punk, indie rock, punk, hardcore, metalcore, that sort of stuff. But do I think that there are lines on these sounds?” he says. “No, because there are artists that might make hardcore music that is influenced by country music. There might be a punk band that is influenced by Charlie XCX. I don’t think there is a line in the sand.”
The tour will hit nearly two dozen cities across the U.S., including Newport. “It’s our job to go out and identify where there’s already excitement. There’s a really great community already in places like Cincinnati,” says Tobin. “You guys are already at the forefront of a lot of what’s happening out there musically, so it’s a real pleasure to be able to travel there.”
Sands agrees, “the Ohio shows are always some of my favorites. The energy is always so high, people always go hard there. I’m really excited to be back in Cincinnati and Ohio in general.”
Plenty of non-musical amenities will be available at the festival, including food vendors, merch sellers, and a Hot Topic and idobi-sponsored photo booth. PETA representatives will also be on-site, providing educational services.
Kaminsky says that the response to the Summer School Tour’s maiden journey made him hopeful for the years ahead. “We’re very grateful for the reaction we had from the community… We’d love to be able to bring even more artists out in the future and expand the scope of music that we showcase. At the end of the day, if there is an artist who is really able to talk to a generation of people, that’s what’s important to us.”
Doors for Summer School Tour at MegaCorp Pavilion will open at 4 p.m. on July 15.
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