NEWBERRY — The second annual Ritz Fest is this Friday and Saturday, February 2 and 3, to help raise suicide awareness and money for the Jason Foundation, a foundation dedicated to raising awareness and educating on youth suicide.
“It’s a new festival we started last year, kind of on a whim, after repeatedly hearing Chris Reid and The Bad Kids saying at their gigs that they were a suicide prevention band, said Ritz Fest Organizer Stephen Corsini. “It just popped in my mind, let’s have a festival.”
Although September is National Suicide Prevention Month, the first weekend of February was picked since many deal with seasonal depression and there is often not much to do in the winter months.
“We purposely did not want it in Suicide Prevention Month because we wanted to continue that awareness throughout the year. We picked a date in the middle of winter when not a lot of events are going on and when the holidays are over,” Corsini explained.
Last year, Ritz Fest had a goal of reaching $3,000 in donations, all of which were donated to the Jason Foundation. They raised $5,101.43 last year and they hope to raise $5,000 this year. Friday night, starting at 7:00 p.m., will open with poets, stand-up comedians and plays, including The Anne Frank Center’s “Letters from Anne and Martin.”
“They took ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ and ‘Letters from Birmingham Jail’ and took excerpts from it and made this play,” Corsini said. “The two of them were not contemporaries, but they both lived under persecution. When you read their works together, there’s a message of united hope.”
Friday night is expected to end around 11:00 p.m. Then, starting at noon on Saturday, there will be performances from 15 different local bands, spanning many different genres.
“We’ve got rock bands, metal, Americana. We even have an electric violinist,” Corsini said.
Some bands will be returning from last year, others new, but all are playing for free in hopes of raising money and spreading suicide awareness. Tickets for the event are pay as you will and there is going to be an art auction, with it all being made locally. All proceeds from tickets and donations will go to the Jason Foundation.
“I really want people to come out and help us raise awareness and money for the event and to help support these artists,” Corsini said. “I think there’s an importance of having conversations about it. Every day in South Carolina, two people take their own lives. In every two and a half days, one of those deaths is a young person between the ages of 11 to 24.”
Ritz Fest will be a weekend event at the Ritz Theatre at 1511 Main St, Newberry. Events start Friday, February 2, from 7:00 to 11:00 p.m. and Saturday, February 3, from noon to 11:00 p.m.