A beloved, Islander-run music festival is coming back with a bang this fall after a brief hiatus. Lady Fest will raise money for survivors of domestic violence and showcase the creativity and musical expression of women from across the Island and beyond.
This year, organizers said they are thrilled to announce the festival’s headliner: Grammy-award winning jazz musician Esperanza Spalding, known world-wide for her North American traditional jazz style, vocal agility, and upright bass prowess.
The festival will also be in a different location this year. Instead of spreading out along Circuit Ave., they’ll set up multiple stages at Waban Alley Park in Oak Bluffs.
“We are so excited and honored,” co-organizer Kelly Feirtag said. “We’re gearing up to have our biggest year yet.”
This Lady Fest will also feature local food establishments, artists, DJs, hip hop dance numbers, and Island bands, such as Wampanoag musician Nanauwe Vanderhoop, local group The Outskirts, Dana Williams, and Rose Guerin, who has co-organized the festival with Feirtag every year since its induction.
Feirtag and Guerin came up with the idea for Lady Fest in 2017 while working at the Ritz Cafe in Oak Bluffs — Feirtag as the manager and Guerin as a bartender, well-known vocalist, and guitarist who frequently played original songs from the dive bar’s stage.
As Feirtag and Guerin became friends, they discovered a shared passion for lifting up women’s voices and advocating for other creatives in the local community. They looked around the walls of the Ritz and saw overlapping pictures and posters of men and male-led bands. They talked about ways to bring women to the forefront, and Lady Fest was the result.
“We realized we were both very like-minded about the lack of female representation in the music scene publicly,” Guerin said. She said the festival’s collaboration with CONNECT to End Violence, through which money is raised to support survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault, was pitched to her and Feirtag after their first festival in 2017. They loved the idea of playing music for a cause.
“It just fits right in with our message,” Guerin added.
They hold the festival in October partly to cater to the year-round Island community, but also because it’s national domestic violence awareness month. Spalding as the headliner further adds to their goal of uplifting female artists.
“It’s not only positive for businesses, but also for the people who live and work here year round. They can’t go to every festival and this is particularly geared towards them. It’s a good time to celebrate Islanders,” Guerin said.
Feirtag and Guerin said that they took 2024 off to regroup from some disturbing confrontations during their previous festivals on Circuit Ave. They said the whole point of the festival is to uplift women and the voices of marginalized groups — and specifically raise money for the protection of women. After a few run-ins at past shows with people who disagreed with their message, they took a year to check in with themselves and the community and reassess.
The duo also said that they’ve been greatly helped by the Oak Bluffs select board and parks department — Feirtag said she was “blown away” by their support.
While the organizers said their ticket model will be different this year due to the change in location — Lady Fest is no longer free to the public — their reason for putting this together is unchanged from the idea they had when glancing at the men who lined the walls of the Ritz.
Guerin and Feirtag said that this year, they’re organizing with a deep sense of what is right, what is worth fighting for, and the central goal of advocating for women.
“We started this to showcase women,” Feirtag said. “We’re keeping the heart of [Lady Fest] the same.”
Lady Fest is at Alley Waban Park on October 11th, 2025, from 2 pm to 9 pm. Tickets are available here.