Our Pick of the Week is Echo Park Rising. This Thursday kicks off the sixth annual music event, which has expanded to include more venues and features (for the first time) a family stage on its four-day run August 18-21. Chicano Batman, La Luz, the Weirdos are among the dozens of bands playing along with other local L.A favorites performing are The Frights, Harriet Brown, Meatbodies, Mind Meld, Part Time and L.A. Drones.

Enjoy women-fronted bands, La Luz, Dorothy, Feels, Sex Stains, Shannon Lay and Jaime Wyatt. *(Yeah – Mama likes!) Elizabeth Garo VP of Talent for Spaceland Presents, said “It’s rare that any festival showcases female musicians and DJ’s so this year I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the talented women who rock the music industry and Echo Park Rising.”

The outdoor main stage at the intersection of Liberty and Reservoir will transform into a street festival destination with viewing areas, craft beer gardens, vendors and food trucks. This year’s festival welcomes two new performance venues, The Semi-Tropic and The Whisperer, both will host hand-picked lineups.

The weekend of Echo Park Rising is, for most businesses in the area, the busiest weekend of the year, with 10,000 guests per day and growing in popularity each year. In addition to the lineup of artists performing, shops, galleries, restaurants come together to celebrate the vibrancy of this eclectic boulevard.

Photo by Carl Pocket / Courtesy of Echo Park Rising

Echo Park Rising takes place at multiple Echo Park Chamber of Commerce member venues and shops over four days participants include: 826la Time Travel Mart, Ballard’s Artwork Framing, Bedrock.LA, Blue Bottle Coffee, BlueCollar Working Dog, Button Mash, Cosmic Vinyl, The Echo & Echoplex, El Centro Del Pubelo, City Council District 13, Esqueleto, Echo Park Farmers Market, The Holloway, Goldroom, iam8bit, I Echo Park, iam8bit, Infrasonic Mastering, Lassens Natural Foods and Vitamins, Law Offices of Trish Newman, Lemon Frog Shop Vintage Bazaar, Little Joy Cocktails, The Lost Knight, Lot 1 Cafe, Masa of Echo Park, Memento Mori, Mohawk Bend, The New California Barbershop, Ostrich Farm, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), El Prado Bar, The Semi-Tropic, Sembly, The Short Stop, Spacedust, Stories Books & Cafe, Studio Number One, Sunset Beer Company, TAIX French Restaurant, Taza cafe, Trencher, Vintage King, Vons, Woodcat, Worship, and Xoia Vietnamese Eats.

Echo Park Rising was created by the Echo Park community as a pop-up impromptu street fair after the 3-decade-old Sunset Junction was shuttered by city officials. The result was a new kind of celebration, one that participants said better mirrored the spirit of the community by creating an open environment to build upon a thriving community celebrating the efforts of the innovative businesses, local eateries, artists and musicians that call Echo Park home.
Photo by Carl Pocket / Courtesy of Echo Park Rising

Echo Park Rising neighborhood festival is presented  by the Echo Park Chamber of Commerce and produced by Spaceland Presents.

Check the website for a full schedule and venues – the events happen all over. Stages are set up at Echo Park Aven and Sunset, the liberty stage plus throughout the neighborhood at music venues and local business (the Echoplex, Echo patio, Ltttle Joy Cocktails, the Lost Room, the AHolloway, the Whisperer, etc.)

What: Echo Park Rising
Where: All over Echo Park
When: August 18 – 21, 2016 – All day and night
Website: http://epr.la