Two students are bringing their vision for Abilene to life by starting Key City Block Party, a new, local music festival.
Mary Carol Fox, senior marketing major from Woodway, and Jordan Fox, senior marketing major from Spring, said they want the event to be like nothing Abilene has seen before.
The event will feature food trucks, vendors and local talent and will take place in April downtown.
“We want people to be able to come downtown and say, “This is different,'” Jordan said. “We want Christmas lights strung up everywhere, and we’re talking about projecting old Bruce Lee fight scenes and 1967 Spiderman cartoons onto some of the buildings. We’ll have DJs and local pop or rap or jazz artists; we just basically want you to come down and be like, “This is weird, but at the same time I can dig this.'”
Key City Block Party is the brainchild of Young Adult Cult, an organization formed by the Foxes as a way to connect college students to local culture. The couple has been planning the event for five months.
“ACU has gotten really good over the past few years as far as creating school spirit and providing things you can do on campus,” Mary Carol said. “What they’re lacking is, you know, students want more than just what’s on campus to make a real college experience. You want to be able to go off campus and really be in love with the city that you’re in.”
The two decided to start Young Adult Cult in July after working at summer internships that tuned them into the arts and culture Abilene has to offer.
Mary Carol said she and Jordan hope this project will do more than just introduce the culture of Abilene to students.
“The future plan is that we can pass this on to students as an internship opportunity for experience with event planning, PR, marketing, etc.,” she said.
The internship opportunities will reflect the experiences the Foxes had during their own internships.
“If you want to go to a place to find new music, one of our internships will be called a cultural investigator,” Jordan said. “Going out and finding these events is something we’ve had to do on our own which has been difficult, so we want to get better about that.”
Although Key City Block Party is their main project, Young Adult Cult has also started a slew of social media accounts and an interactive website that lets visitors discover what’s happening in Abilene for the month which encourages them to experience new things.
ACU has teamed up with Hardin-Simmons University in creating the event.
“Popping the collegiate bubbles is something we’ve really been trying to do and students on other local campuses are trying to do the same,” Jordan said.
In the future, Young Adult Cult plans to have events such as crawfish bashes, fundraising events to help give back to the community and more.
Young Adult Cult is always looking for volunteers and is still searching for talent for the upcoming festival.
“Our volunteer work is fun,” Jordan said. “It’s easy, and actually worth your while. It makes you a better person by being able to get out and connect with your community.
For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/youngadultcult.
