Festival of Friends Events
 The Bandsharing Performance Community
Festival of Friends Events hosts events in cities across the U.S.  ​Whether you’re looking for performance experiences in your hometown or have plans to travel to a new city, Festival of Friends Events offers a simple way for everyday musicians to plug into local recreational musician scenes while offering music fans access to homegrown community and live entertainment.​  

Our curated events are less about performer vs audience and more about everyone in the room having a shared musical experience and the result is a party that's always entertaining.  And as serious as we are about what we do, it's really just about having a ruinous amount of fun and making a lot of new friends.

Performance Event Formats

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Standard Events - Songmixers Series
Songmixers events are pre-organized cover​ song performance​ collectives. Each Songmixers event is comprised up of a rotating roster of pre-registered musicians who perform a 16-song set of classic material. Registration is open to everyone and is first come, first served.
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Special Events - Bandmixers Series
​Bandmixers events feature "curated" cover​ bands​.  Curated bands are made up from musicians within the Festival of Friends Events community and together bands perform 5-song mini-sets of material based on a specific theme.  Some restrictions do apply.

Upcoming Public Events
​​Find a Festival of Friends bandsharing event that interests you and sign-up to reserve your performer slot.  In general we publish events we're planning to host two months prior to the date they're scheduled for.  This ensures participating musicians have adequate time to register and learn their individual playing parts before the big show.  Festival of Friends Events welcomes your involvement in our bandsharing community!
Tacoma, WA
Songmixers Series: Classic Rock Radio!
  • ​Friday, June 28, 2019
  • Alma Mater / Fawcett Hall
  • Doors at 7:30pm, Music at 8:30pm
  • Advance Tickets $10/$15 Doors (All-Ages)

Past Public Events

Below are some of the past Festival of Friends Events we've hosted.  
Tacoma, WA: Decades of Rock
​October 13, 2017 (The Swiss)

Event set list included:

  • Heartbreaker  (Led Zeppelin)
  • Piece Of My Heart (Janis Joplin)
  • Already Gone (The Eagles)
  • Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac)​
  • Radio Free Europe (R.E.M.)
  • I Will Follow (U2)
  • Found Out About You (Gin Blossoms)
  • Cannonball (The Breeders)
Seattle, WA: Icons of Grunge
Friday, January 26, 2018 (Substation)

Event set list included:

  • Loud Love (Soundgarden)
  • Outshined (Soundgarden)
  • Man In The Box (Alice In Chains)
  • Rooster (Alice In Chains)
  • Even Flow (Pearl Jam)
  • The Fixer (Pearl Jam)
  • Heart Shaped Box (Nirvana)
  • Love Buzz (Nirvana)
Seattle, WA: 90's Alternative Rock Classics
October 21, 2017 (Hard Rock Cafe)

Event set list included:

  • Only Happy When It Rains (Garbage)
  • Possum Kingdom (The Toadies)
  • Flagpole Sitta (Harvey Danger)
  • Buddy Holly (Weezer)
  • Violet (Hole)
  • Everything Zen (Bush)
  • Brainstew/Jaded (Green Day)
  • Santa Monica (Everclear)
Seattle, WA: Hard Rock Classics
Saturday, April 21, 2018 (Hard Rock Cafe)

Event set list included:

  • Highway to Hell (AC/DC)
  • Barracuda (Heart)
  • Sweet Emotion (Aerosmith)
  • ​Detroit Rock City (KISS)
  • Ace of Spades (Motorhead)
  • Jail Break (Thin Lizzy)
  • Juke Box Hero (Foreigner)
  • Tie Your Mother Down (Queen)
Seattle, WA: Punk Rock Classics
Saturday, September 22, 2018 (The Rendezvous)
Seattle, WA: Dead Rock Stars
Saturday, November 17, 2018 (Hard Rock Cafe)
Event set list included:
Event set list included:
  • TV Party (Black Flag)
  • ​I Fought the Law (The Clash)
  • Ever Fallen in Love (Buzzcocks)
  • New Rose (The Damned)​
  • Anarchy in the U.K. (Sex Pistols)
  • Rise Above (Black Flag)
  • Holiday in Cambodia (Dead Kennedys)
  • I Wanna Be Sedated (The Ramones)​
  • Institutionalized (Suicidal Tendencies)
  • Let's Go Crazy (Prince)
  • Under Pressure (Queen/David Bowie)
  • Gimme Three Steps (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
  • Show Me How to Live (Audioslave)
  • Say Hello to Heaven (Temple of the Dog​
  • Crazy Train (Ozzy Osbourne)
  • Nobody Told Me (John Lennon)
  • Beat It (Michael Jackson)
  • Zombie (The Cranberries)
  • Move Over (Janis Joplin)
  • The Ocean (Led Zeppelin)
  • Sex Type Thing (Stone Temple Pilots)
  • You Wreck Me (Tom Petty)
Seattle, WA: Bandmixers Debut!
Saturday, January 19, 2019 (Skylark West Seattle)
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Hammer of the Gods (Led Zeppelin)
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Achtung Maybe (Classic U2)
Bandmixers set lists included:
Seattle, WA: Rock & Roll Love Stories
- Songmixers Series -
Saturday, February 23, 2019 (Columbia City Theater)
Event set list included:

TAKE OUR SURVEY
This survey is designed to understand your playing background and skill-set as well as what your performing interests are within the context of a Festival of Friends event. We appreciate your feedback to help better serve you.
Tom Tafelsky was originally the founder and program director of the Urban Music Farm: Seattle's Recreational Musician Community. He is now the founder, owner and creative director of Festival of Friends.  As a self-taught drummer he believes strongly in the power and pursuit of the recreational musician and music's unique ability to inspire us and connect us like no other art form can. When he's not busy dreaming up cool new ways for recreational musicians to make music together, he can be found playing music, disc golf or hanging out with friends, family and community.​