ST. AUGUSTINE, Florida — When it comes to busy events in St. Augustine, there are the Nights of Lights, the Fourth of July, and then the weekend the Sing Out Loud marquee event takes place on Francis Event field.
Sing Out Loud has been described as one of the biggest music festivals in the southeast.
Production Manager Carl Liberatore said, "We are using every square inch of this field."
"This year’s genres range from country to indie rock to blues," Communications Director Dianya Markovitz told First Coast News.
This weekend will feature Eric Church, Noah Kahan, Nora Jones and Jacksonville-native JJ Grey.
Organizers expect 24,000 people to fill the field at one time this year. The largest number to fill the field at one time during last year's marquee event was 18,000 people, Liberatore said. That’s still more than the population of the city of St. Augustine, which is 15,000.
Local organizers created this festival eight years ago, specifically for St. Augustine’s slow month of September.
"We know we are a tourism based economy and when we don't have those tourists, our local businesses tend to see very large dips in their sales and they tend to cut staff. And that can be stressful," Markovitz said.
Last year’s Sing Out Loud Festival boosted hotel occupancy from 54% to 73%, Markovitz said.
Concertgoers will notice a 20+ foot tall inflatable Florida panther this year in the middle of the field.
"I think he’s fantastic," Meredith Budd beamed. She is the Strategic Initiatives with the Live Wildly Foundation.
Sing Out Loud is partnering with Live Wildly, an organization Budd said is "all about balancing economy and ecology across Florida. We're all about wildlife and conservation of habitat. But also balancing that with the needs of economic growth and development."
The towering inflatable Florida panther is the exclamation point of the festival.
"Ten dollars form every ticket sold is going to conservation right here in St. Johns County," Budd noted.