After 13 years in downtown Peterborough, The Thing in the Spring is shapeshifting. The eclectic New Hampshire music festival will take place in neighboring town Keene this year, bringing 35 artists to Nova Arts between Thursday (May 19) and Sunday evening (May 22). The festival’s new format condenses its footprint significantly; all sets this weekend will take place at one of Nova Arts’ two stages, as opposed to years past, when the festivities spread across multiple venues, museums, and galleries.
Longtime festival organizer Eric Gagne currently works as as the programmer for Nova Arts, hence this year’s switch from Peterborough to Keene.
“We’ve been booking shows year-round here, and it’s a perfect fit,” he tells Vanyaland. “Because of it [the festival] being in a new place, we are just going to be in one location, though there will be an outdoor stage and beer garden. We are cooking up dreams for what we’ll be able to do in the future.”
Some national names on this year’s lineup include Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo, Sammus, Jeff Parker, Pete Bernhard (of The Devil Makes Three), Myriam Gendron, and Anna Fox Rochinski (pictured above, also of the Boston band Quilt). New England artists contribute a substantial chunk of this year’s programming, featuring sets from The Huntress and Holder of Hands (Warren, RI), Ezra Cohen (Dover, NH), Dead Gowns (Portland, ME), The Burning Sun (Burlington, VT), Kimaya Diggs (Northampton, MA), and Nat Baldwin (Greenfield, MA), among others.
Weekend passes are $100, while single day passes go for $30; check out the full lineup and day-by-day breakdowns below, and snag some tickets here.