Femme Fest Expands in Second Year at The Milestone
Benefit show boasts 17 acts in this year's lineup
Femme Fest, a homegrown benefit concert showcasing bands or artists that include at least one woman, femme-presenting or LGBTQIA+ member, will return this spring, doubling down for two days of music.
After a successful one-day inaugural run in 2024, the event that won Best New Music Festival/Event in Queen City Nerve’s Best in the Nest Awards returns to The Milestone from May 16-17, expanding with 17 local and regional rock acts.
Callie Wolfe and Joseph Conde, cofounders of adventurous Charlotte alt-rock band Oh! You Pretty Things, launched Femme Fest last year as a response to the music industry’s ongoing discrimination against women and femme-presenting artists.
Wolfe and Conde aimed to leverage their band’s burgeoning regional popularity to push back against the industry’s gender inequities. Femme Fest 2025 furthers this initiative, pushing it into overdrive, the cofounders say.
“It’s important to let people know that they are wanted and their voice is valid,” Conde says. “We want to hear more from the people who are systematically shut out.”
The organizers say they were encouraged after the first iteration of Femme Fest succeeded beyond their most optimistic hopes.
“It still feels like a fever dream with how well everything turned out,” Wolfe says. Femme Fest 2024 surpassed expectations, raising over $4,000 — 100% of the show’s profits — for eight local, national and international organizations that help women, femme-presenting people and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
This year, Wolfe and Conde say the fest will raise money for a similar mix of organizations. They hope to top last year’s take at the door by adding funds earned from merch like Femme Fest T-shirts and stickers, not to mention adding an extra day. They’re also looking into sponsorships for Femme Fest wristbands.
Rise of the feminine
Musically, Femme Fest 2025 will surpass last year’s eclectic and impressive bill, not because the performers are better this time around, but with two days to book instead of one, there’s just that much more music.
Returning from the inaugural Femme Fest are Queen City electro-punk trio Girl Brutal, raw Carolinas cabaret rocker Jordyn Zaino’s supergroup With Haste!, western North Carolina’s indie-punk post-hardcore band Fantømex, ferocious Savannah grunge outfit The Maxines, and Charlotte alt-indie-rock band Leaving For Arizona.
Charlotte’s Modern Moxie, the tight, inventive alt-rock band led by charismatic singer-songwriter Madison Lucas, also joins the bill this year. Other acts new to the fest include Charlotte’s feminist hardcore punk trio No Anger Control, Shelby’s punk-powerhouse quintet Y’All’Re, West Virginia’s propulsive and melodic alt rockers Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess, and heavy grunge-rock quartet Annie Dukes from Jacksonville, Florida.
All bands have agreed to play the fest for free, Conde says, though artists traveling to the gig from out of town will receive a gas stipend and artists traveling from out of state will receive lodging stipends as well.
As the assault on women’s and LGBTQIA+ peoples’ rights metastasizes into a Republican-led cancer that targets not just musicians but everyone’s lives and liberties, events like Femme Fest grow all the more important.
Besides the money and awareness the show will raise, Wolfe notes that Femme Fest also helps deliver a powerful message to marginalized communities that they are not alone.
“[The festival] is about knowing that this is a safe space, finding a new favorite band, or just having a wonderful night where you can forget all the crazy bullshit that we’re living through,” Wolfe says.
Femme Fest needs to keep going and getting larger each year because it’s lighting a fuse, fostering visibility and building community, Wolfe maintains, so the festival’s message can be continuously heard locally, nationally and internationally.
“Women and femme people in music matter,” she says. “They fucking matter, and they’re not going anywhere.”
