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Provo music festival frights, delights all

The stuffy air collects above the crowd in a delicious mix of perfume, last-second Halloween makeup from a drugstore, not enough deodorant and desperation to find some kind of solace from having to live in Provo.

The dance floor is flanked by two more open vestibules bathed in red light, one of them complete with a pair of lush red armchairs sitting underneath an oversized black deer skull. Velvet drapes and an antique rug tie the whole set together with a foreboding finish.

If you would have told me a few weeks ago I would be spending an October Friday night in a prom dress from Deseret Industries I ripped to shreds with a serrated knife, I would have laughed right in your stupid face. And then I would get a little nervous because that actually does sound like something I would do. At least a little. Maybe like a 40% chance that I would do it.

Goth Prom is the kick-off event for the local annual Halloween music festival Buzzards and Bees, hosted in downtown Provo. This year, the festival featured more than 70 local musicians and bands in over ten different venues from around 4 p.m. to midnight.

From local coffee shops to music stores to congregational church stages, featuring indie, pop, rock and folk musicians (plus most everything in between). Plus, a Goth Prom dance party, all for $15? Buzzards and Bees has solidified itself as a new Halloween staple.

Which is how I found myself with last-minute raccoon-looking sparkly makeup smeared around my eyes and doing the wallflower two-step while watching a group of at least 50 young adults mosh to DJ remixes of Dua Lipa. And honestly? I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

“I was so glad I went,” said USU senior Denali Sanders. “It actually was a lot better than I thought it was going to be, because of like, you know, Provo. But it was so fun. Plus, it’s always fun to have an excuse to dress up and do insane eyeliner that I’m too afraid to do during normal business hours — because I work with children.”

The festival officially began Friday night with Goth Prom, encouraging attendees to “come dressed depressed.” The dance was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., but showing up on time is decidedly un-goth, so my party and I arrived at The Underground Social Hall a bit later. The Buzzards and Bees staff nailed down the aesthetic perfectly, from spider webs to skeletons to spooky lighting to only slightly sloshed young adults.

“I loved how like, they went kind of all out for the dance,” Sanders said. “It was basically everything I wanted my high school prom to be, but wasn’t.”

And the musicians the next day were hardly a disappointment. Participating venues were assigned a genre and had ample room for festival-goers to sit and watch, which made it especially easy to know when and/or where you wanted to duck into. The published schedule was organized by time slot as well as venue and promised dozens of local acts punctuated with more popular local performers — bands like The Rubies, Brother., and The Solarists.

Buzzards and Bees gives the local music scene (a community that rarely gets the spotlight in Provo) a time and place to be wholly itself and, in their own words, it’s “scary good.”