Believer Festival kicks off at Red Rock with writing, music, arts
Grab the reader’s attention with something great in the first chapter and they’re likely to read your story to the very last word.
But the second chapter? That’s where readers will bail on a book if it doesn’t live up to its early promise.
UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute will face its own Second Chapter Challenge this weekend when it presents its second annual Believer Festival, a celebration of writing, music and the visual arts that kicks off Friday at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area and moves Saturday to sites throughout downtown Las Vegas.
‘Hard to top’
Last year’s inaugural event was well-received and well-attended, and events sold out quickly. Joshua Wolf Shenk, BMI’s executive director and writer-in-residence and editor-in-chief of The Believer, admits the first-year success made the thought of creating a sequel seem “overwhelming” at times.
There were moments when last year’s festival seemed “hard to top,” Shenk says. “There is a lot happening and there are a lot of different pieces, and I think the big thing in my mind is what will that alchemy be like and will Las Vegas want to continue to engage.”
With at least two events selling out more than a week ago, the answer probably will be “yes.”
“This year, we’re hearing from more people who have heard about it,” Shenk says. “So there is a sense of growth in that way. We have a core community among our regular attenders and board members who know what this thing is and know what to expect and energize for it.”
Unofficially, the Believer Festival also will celebrate the second anniversary of the union of The Believer and BMI, which purchased the formerly San Francisco-based journal just over a year ago and moved its editorial operations to Las Vegas.
One tweak to this year’s festival will be a variety show Saturday evening featuring humorist John Hodgman, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Aimee Mann and hip-hop artist and comedian Jean Grae.
“We liked the idea of a variety show because The Believer is kind of a variety show in print, and BMI definitely is about convergence and many voices and celebrating differences,” Shenk says. “So it really felt just right.”
While The Believer magazine has a national, and even a worldwide, readership, Shenk said the bulk of last year’s festival attendees were Southern Nevadans, with “a small number of guests from out of town.”
“It will be interesting to see if this crosses over into the tourist market,” he says. “I still think that the world doesn’t quite know what to do with us.”
‘The real Las Vegas’
But that’s OK, because the Believer Festival aims to celebrate, and involve, “a lot of local talent, which is very important to us,” Shenk says. “It’s important for us to serve the community and to provide a point of connection with the city and with people who are interested in our community.”
Drew Cohen, co-owner of the Writer’s Block, 1020 Fremont St., recalls that, before last year’s inaugural Believer Festival, he sensed some “skepticism that the event would work and be well-attended and be good.”
But, he says, “I felt a perception of relief and excitement last year from people who attended.”
While the Writer’s Block handles book sales at festival events, Cohen considers the ripple effects of last year’s Believer Festival to be more about the intangible than the concrete.
“I won’t say that it necessarily created many (bookstore) regulars,” he says. Rather, “I think it was more a morale boost for everyone in Las Vegas who enjoys literary events and activities.”
Cohen expects that the festival will help raise Las Vegas’ literary profile. “Writers talk to one another. Their agents talk to one another. Their publishers talk to one another,” he says. “It does increase the profile of the city.”
Shenk says he hopes the Believer Festival will serve as a vehicle for showcasing the valley’s literary scene and a way to introduce the real Las Vegas and its people to writers, musicians and artists from elsewhere who may hold a mistaken view of it.
“Not to say anything about the Strip,” Shenk says, “but just to show (writers) that, the ideas they have from the ‘Hangover’ movies, there’s a whole city 180 degrees away from that, and there are earnest, serious, bright people who are for real.
“And it sounds weird to say that. It would be insane to not get that,” Shenk adds. “But there are a lot of people who don’t.”
Contact John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280. Follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.