THING Festival Cancels Latinx Lineup Over Travel & Immigration Concerns

This year, the annual THING Music & Arts Festival has made some drastic changes to its format. Rather than a single multi-day event over one weekend, they’ve divided the festival across four Saturdays throughout the month of August. Each one of these dates has a distinctly different and carefully curated lineup, resulting in what will be almost like mini-festivals in themselves. THING has made adjustments in the past, including an expansion in the number of days and last year’s big move to Remlinger Farm in Carnation, WA, from its original location at Fort Worden in Port Townsend. In fact, THING itself marks a shift away from the rowdy Sasquatch! Festival into something a little more family-focused. Changes need to happen, and they don’t always work, but this move to present each day with its own theme felt like a smart one. Unfortunately, the very “thing” that made this idea so great has put organizers in such a bind that they’ve chosen to drop one of the days altogether.

The third installment, which was scheduled to take place on August 16th, has just been pulled from the schedule due to some fairly upsetting reasons. Intended to showcase Latinx, Mexican, and Chicano artists, the rapid growth in outward fascism reflected in terroristic government policies endorsing racial profiling, and violent ICE raids has created an environment where many people are understandably concerned for their rights and safety. Not only have masked thugs been kidnapping citizens by raiding large gatherings, but international travel has become increasingly difficult in these times. It’s horrible that these tactics have been successful in their goal to strike fear to the point that they are managing to shut down events like this, which would otherwise be platforms for celebration. That said, it makes more sense to move based on reality than on how we wish the world to be, under these circumstances.

Read the message from the organizers below.