DeLuna Fest shifts to September

DeLuna Fest is returning to the shores of Pensacola Beach. And it’s doing so a month earlier than you might have thought.

Organizers with Five Flags Tourism Group announced this morning that — pending final approval at the Santa Rosa Island Authority’s Feb 22 meeting — the 2012 festival will be Sept. 21-23. That moves the festival up nearly a full month from the mid-October weekend of its first two years.

Organizers did not reveal a reason for the move, but a look at the crowded October entertainment calendar — locally and nationally — provides a few possible clues. One of the country’s largest and most popular music festivals, Austin City Limits Music Festival, is taking place on the “traditional” DeLuna weekend, Oct. 12-14, in Austin, Texas, and is sure to garner the bulk of that week’s music festival travel dollars. The preceding two weekends are filled with the Pensacola Seafood Festival, set for Sept. 28-30, and Mobile’s Bayfest music festival, set for Oct. 5-7. The Pensacola Interstate Fair opens the following week, on Oct. 18. So from a planning standpoint, the new weekend seems to make logical sense.

A lineup for the festival is still to come, but Pensacola native Gus Brandt has been hired to book the festival’s musical talent. A long-time industry pro, Brandt has spent more than 15 years as road manager for Grammy Award-winning rock superstars Foo Fighters, and also has worked tours for acts such as blink-182, Weezer, Conan O’Brien and Eminem. Brandt started his career as a concert promoter in Pensacola, bringing such acts as Social Distortion, Primus, the Offspring, the Flaming Lips, Helmet and Soundgarden to town in the 1980s.

Tom Carmichael, co-owner of Capt’n Fun Beach Club on Pensacola Beach, said he thinks the 2012 festival is off to a good start.

“If they have a great booking agent — and it sounds like they do — that’s the start,” Carmichael said. “If they can come out of the chutes naming big acts first, everybody on the beach will rally behind them and try to make it work. But instilling that confidence is key.”