OffBeat Music Festival

OffBeat is the wristband crawl through the small rooms of the Brewery District in Reno. One wristband opens the weekend's venues. Flip Wright is still in front. In November 2025 he told Bill Kopp, at Musoscribe, that he was moving the LLC into a nonprofit and that the name would be Offbeat Music Society. The ticket page for 2 and 3 October 2026 already uses that name. The site, read on 28 September 2026, announces those two dates. Those nights are not walked here.

The first one was Off Beat, with a space, from 5 to 8 November 2015. Wright tells Kopp it began as a conversation after a Flaming Lips concert, in a hotel suite. He was the advertising-agency man. A local promoter and a local musician made up the trio. The Reno Gazette-Journal of 2 March 2015 names them: Remi Jourdan, Flip Wright and Baldo Bobadilla, of Drinking With Clowns. The same paper, on 4 November, writes Remi Jordan. Both spellings stay in the sentence. Loren Codron steps onto the Cargo stage on Sunday the 8th, with the three of them, in Spencer Kilpatrick's note for Tahoe Onstage. The November paper speaks of about 100,000 dollars, with in-kind contributions. The February announcement sets 5 to 8 November. The 4 November piece counts 90 acts and 13 rooms, plus other arts, in the Biggest Little City. The districts of that first one, according to the March note, were the Arch, Midtown and Old Brewery.

Kilpatrick closes the account at Cargo. The arc of the weekend, in his text, starts with Moondog Matinee in that room and ends on Sunday the 8th with Con Brio. Ziek McCarter comes on in bright clothes, spins and splits. The tune the note singles out is Never Be The Same, slow soul. Tim Parsons, in the same outlet, sees another night at Cargo: Con Brio opens, The Main Squeeze follows, and McCarter, already in the crowd, writes Gr8ness on a reporter's pad. Max Newman is on guitar, Corey Frye on voice, Ben Silvertstein on keys. They call Silvertstein Smiley. Jelly Bread closes that night, with Charlie Brown on keys and Sean Lehe on a second guitar. Parsons gives no title. In the second year, Kilpatrick only gets into The Saint on Saturday, with his band Failure Machine, and he leaves no title either.

The map moves. A Tahoe Onstage preview for 5 to 8 October 2023 calls that edition the eighth year, places it in Midtown and speaks of seven venues and of more than three dozen groups. This Is Reno, on 8 October 2024, puts the weekend in the Brewery District, Friday through Sunday, with more than 60 performances and a dozen venues, on Fourth Street from Evans Avenue to Elko Avenue. Steve Emmerich, of Fresh Bakin' Promotions, speaks of seven venues. The dozen and the seven stay together. The Morris stage, outdoors, was free on Saturday and Sunday, from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. KOLO, on 25 September 2025, calls 2 to 4 October the tenth anniversary and says four days. Kopp writes three days, 2 to 4 October. Will Truce appears in KOLO as co-founder of Black Rabbit Mead, not of the festival. The site's menu lists lineups from 2015 through 2019 and from 2021 through 2024. 2020 does not appear on that menu.

Wright, in that November 2025 conversation, describes the machine as it runs. Capacity for the whole event is 2,500. There are usually about 70 performances and nine stages, about 65 to 70 bands, and close to 20 percent local or regional. There are no big rooms. He says that, over the years, you might have seen Blitzen Trapper or Built to Spill in a room of 200, sometimes of 150. Every artist from out of town gets a hotel room, a wristband for the whole festival and a payment. The venues keep what they sell. A core of about ten volunteers stays with him. Nobody in that core is paid. He puts the discovery acts brought to Reno over ten years at almost 500. Breaking even, he says, is already a win. The line the district pages repeat is Lend Your Ears, Lose Your Fears.

The rules published for 2 and 3 October 2026 are an announcement. The FAQ and Eventbrite do not match on box-office hours, at the Black Rabbit Mead parking lot, 401 E 4th Street. Both put Thursday 1 October from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. The FAQ puts Friday from 4 p.m. to 12 p.m. and Saturday from 1 p.m. to 12 p.m. Eventbrite puts Friday and Saturday from 2 p.m. until 12 p.m. The artist lounge, on a VIP pass, is at KRI Architecture, 321 E 5th Street, behind The Depot, with a cap of 30 passes and an age of 21. The FAQ says that in 2026 there is no separate door cover. What stays walked is the small room, the wristband, and Never Be The Same on 8 November 2015.