All Over Albany

Dates for RestFest 2013, and a new venue

CAC Woodside

The organizers of the annual Restoration Festival have announced the music event is headed to Troy. RestFest 2013 will be at the Contemporary Artists Center at Woodside, a former church in South Troy currently under renovation to become an exhibition and performance space.

And the dates for Rest Fest 2013: September 6 and 7 (a Friday and Saturday).

The first three Rest Fests were held at St. Joseph's in Albany thanks to a collaboration between festival organizers and the Historic Albany Foundation. This past May HAF announced it's handing the old church back to the city of Albany.

Louis Apicello, one of Rest Fest's organizers, tells us they didn't talk with the city about continuing to use St. Joe's because a search for a new location was already in progress before HAF's announcement. "We had been looking at alternate sites simply because we knew we wouldn't have St. Joe's forever, whether it was for new ownership, or a business moving in or whatever. Since we had a site in the works, and since the folks over at the CAC were excited, the transfer of ownership just made the decision to move the fest this year that much easier."

He adds that the change of venue is "a positive step in testing the mission of Rest Fest, making it an idea-based festival and not necessarily a location-based festival."

Early-bird tickets for Rest Fest 2013 will go on sale later this month. Organizers say 25 percent of the net proceeds will go to support CAC Woodside.

The first band announcements are also scheduled to arrive around that time. (Here's last year's lineup.)

Earlier on AOA:
+ New lives for old churches
+ Contemporary Artists Center at Woodside

AOA has been a media sponsor of Rest Fest.