For the 20th year in a row, Pygmalion will usher in the fall season on the weekend of Sept. 21 with its annual Champaign-Urbana arts lineup.
Pygmalion was created by Urbana native Seth Fein, a former musician and buzz magazine alum. After touring with his own band in his 20s, Fein moved to work as a booking agent before bringing shows together to create the event.
“I was doing a lot of independent club shows at Canopy Club … and I was having some success,” Fein said. “I was finding a lot of opportunities to book pretty cool indie-rock shows … that led me to wanting to do Pygmalion. I just figured this community would like a music festival, and they did.”
Pygmalion was officially born in C-U in 2005, the same year that Lollapalooza was relocated to its home of Chicago and Pitchfork hosted their first annual music festival.
“At the time there weren’t very many music festivals at all,” Fein said. “I didn’t really have much of a road map, it was just a collection of shows on that one weekend.”
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However, Pygmalion didn’t stay a traditional music festival for long. By the early 2010s, inspiration from close friends and family led Fein to bring comedians, authors and even an arts and crafts fair to the community as well.
“It allows us to do whatever we want. And that’s why we don’t call it a music festival, that’s why we don’t even use the word ‘festival,’” Fein said. “We don’t even use that term anymore because we feel like it’s kind of a misnomer. So it’s just Pygmalion. The programming can be whatever we want it to be.”
In past years, Pygmalion has seen a trend of catching popular acts just before they hit fame on a global scale. These include artists such as Janelle Monáe in 2010, Major Lazer in 2013 and Playboi Carti in 2018.
“We tend to get these acts when they’re on their way up. I mean, Black Pumas is now a huge act, right?” Fein said. “They played the Rose Bowl in 2019 just as a small club show. I always love being able to look back and say, ‘This band won a Grammy,’ or ‘This band is now playing a festival headline, but they just played this small show in Champaign at Pygmalion.’”
This year’s lineup holds similarly big names, including rapper Cupcakke, pop rock band X Ambassadors, jazz drummer Makaya McCraven and Australian pop duo Royel Otis.
Looking to Pygmalion’s 20th edition, Fein outlined some shows he was personally excited about.
“Joe Pera. He’s a comedian I’ve just fallen in love with so deeply,” Fein said. “I cannot express how honored I am to be able to host him. He’s such a unique, interesting voice that really understands comedic timing.”
On the musical side, Fein is looking forward to a wide variety of new talent coming to the area.
“I’m really excited about Royel Otis, I think they’re a really f—ing cool band,” Fein said. “Makaya McCraven on Friday at Rose Bowl, unbelievable jazz drummer from Chicago, is gonna blow the minds of the people who choose to go to that show, no doubt about it.”
