In the week preceding the new Bellingham Exit festival, Mark Kuntz, Bellingham TheatreWorks co-founder, is spending long days and nights at an undisclosed warehouse location in Ferndale.
Kuntz is overseeing a team of artists and designers building elaborate installations for the inaugural citywide music, art and comedy festival taking place Oct. 11–15.
Bellingham TheatreWorks initially got involved through Festival Director Hunter Motto, creative director at Seattle’s Crocodile Cafe and a Western Washington University alum who first started booking shows for Western’s Associated students.
Motto and Kuntz worked together years ago for a summer theater program at the Mount Baker Theatre, so they had a preexisting relationship.
“I (also) have a reputation for generating lots of visual work on a budget,” Kuntz said, “so I think I might have been a fairly logical person for him to contact.”
The venues Kuntz and his team will be transforming into nature-based art installations include the Wild Buffalo (The Nest Stage), The Shakedown (Mush Room Stage), The Blue Room (Moon Emporium Stage) and New Prospect Theatre (Deep Sea Comedy Stage).
“We’ve been a little tight-lipped about it,” Motto said, pointing out the installations won’t be on site until Oct. 10, the day before Bellingham Exit launches. “We want to keep the mystery alive.”
What isn’t under wraps is that Bellingham Exit is an ambitious undertaking.
In addition to the five main venues — which includes the Mount Baker Theatre — the multi-day event will include a number of pop-up concerts, comedy shows at The Upfront Theatre, and a two-day Art Market on Oct. 13-14 at the long-vacant National Bank Building on the corner of Holly Street and Cornwall Avenue.
“At the core, the longer-term goal for Bellingham Exit is to create lasting space between the intersections of music, comedy and art,” Motto said. “There’s a lot that we’re doing this year, and a lot more we hope to do in the future.”
Motto, who also books bands for Bellingham’s Northwest Tune-Up festival, said a “lean, mean” team of approximately 16 staffers and 40 volunteers are busy working behind the scenes to get spaces ready and keep the public informed about the 50-plus events that will take place at 15 venues.
What helps, he said, is that many of the existing venues have their own crews and won’t need to build their stages from scratch.
As for booking the talent, Motto said he started reaching out shortly after Bellingham Exit was given a green light by Bellingham City Council a year ago. In some cases, it was an easy sell, but he said had to put more work into convincing other entertainers that it would be worth their time and effort.
Cascadia Daily News contributor Jesse Stanton covered many of the local and big-name bands taking part in Bellingham Exit in The Beat Goes On column. Attendees should be aware festival passes also cover shows at the Mount Baker Theatre featuring popular comedians and entertainers Joe Pera, Marc Maron, and Monet X Change from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
“I’m excited to see the city come alive and people really see all the hard work we’ve put in to make a magical few days happen,” Motto said, likening the event to a come-one, come-all fringe festival, or a smaller SXSW, South by Southwest.
In its first year, he anticipates the crowds will be akin to a normal busy week for fall in Bellingham, and doesn’t think the five-day event will impact downtown traffic significantly.
Forrest Templin, a 22-year-old Western student handling marketing and other tasks — including helping paint cardboard signs to place in window fronts to publicize the festival — said he’s learned a lot from Motto’s vision for the event, which is that you exit from whatever is ordinary to you.
“I think letting people interpret that in their own ways is key,” Templin said. “Since I’ve been working for the Exit, I’ve spent a lot more time downtown, on foot. I’m looking at the art going on between the venues and it feels really different in a beautiful way.”
Kuntz is excited to add even more art to the mix.
“We are enjoying the challenge of reinventing the performance spaces, and think the community will be gobsmacked when they walk in,” he said. “I have never had a challenge like this and am having a ball. The visual artists who have joined the event are terrific and we are having a great time.”
Tickets are $99 for a pass to all of the comedy shows, $225 for a multi-day pass to all shows, and $325–$425 for VIP tickets.
To see the full lineup for Bellingham Exit, purchase tickets and RSVP for free shows, go to bellinghamexit.com.
