SAN DIEGO \u2013 In San Diego\u2019s unstable music festival circuit, The Mustache Bash \u2014 a boutique disco and rave festival \u2014 has consistently grown since its conception 18 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But growing into a full-scale annual music festival was never its founders\u2019 intent. Back in March 2008, about 16 San Diego State University sophomores had an idea for a house party.\u00a0\u00a0After exclusively attending fraternity and sports team parties, they wanted to throw their own.<\/p>\n
Tyler Dupraw, one of the students and a Mustache Bash co-founder, said every college party needs a theme, and someone pitched a mustache party. They didn\u2019t think that was enough of a theme, so they paired it with \u201970s funk and disco fashion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were, I think, like 19 years old and none of us had grown a mustache before,\u201d he told Times of San Diego. \u201cSo we just stopped shaving for a few months, and sure enough, we all grew a scraggly form of a mustache.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Live music was always a key component of the party. The group had musician friends who were willing to play at their parties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first party was a success, prompting Dupraw and crew to continue throwing it for their final three years of college. Every year, the party grew \u2014 bringing issues beyond the college students\u2019 realm of control.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was growing to the scale where it got broken up, we got noise complaints,\u201d Dupraw said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In most cases, a group of college friends would disperse, occasionally reminiscing on the wild theme parties they threw together, especially under the pressure of neighbors potentially shutting down their party. Not the case for the Bash.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In their fourth year, and first out of college, they decided to rent a venue for the party in Pacific Beach. They kept it word of mouth and never poured money into marketing or advertising. At this point, it was still just a party that was supported by a group of friends playing music.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet, it was still growing every year. By the seventh year, they found they needed to upgrade the venue again, moving downtown to the Grand Horton Hotel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the first year we hired a band that wasn\u2019t a part of our immediate group,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The year after that, they moved it to Broadway Pier, where they began to experience even more growth \u2014 adding more stages and increasing production.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThose were our formative years [at Broadway Pier] from going to just a party to more of a boutique festival,\u201d Dupraw said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This year, the festival will be held at the Mariner\u2019s Point Park in Mission Beach, its second year at the location, from 2-10 p.m. on Saturday, March 21. The event will feature four different stages with 16 artists and DJs performing throughout the day and into the night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mustache Bash Family Band is an annual highlight. It\u2019s a collective of San Diego musicians who get together to play \u201970s funk\/disco hits. The festival lineup now also boasts a mix of EDM\/house and disco artists, including this year\u2019s headliner Marc Rebillet.<\/p>\n
Rebillet is an electronic musician from New York who has garnered a large following on Instagram for his improvised electronic\/funk style music.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one\u2019s going to be a pretty rowdy one,\u201d Dupraw said. \u201cRebillet is gonna bring the fire.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other lineup highlights include Blu Detiger, a New York City-based funk bassist who played the Bash in 2023, and Gavin Turek, a disco artist from Los Angeles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To Dupraw, the growth and success of their party is not a surprise. They\u2019ve always kept the core founders, never looking for outside investment. Even though they spent little money on advertising, Dupraw said the festival has remained a welcoming space.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He and the 10 founders who remain involved want to create an event that holds true to their original idea \u2014 a party with live music and friends.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
That hasn\u2019t stopped them from growing, but with growth comes expenses \u2014 more stages, more bars, a roller rink \u2014 which then can raise ticket prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tricky thing,\u201d Dupraw said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But most new expenses come from improving upon the prior year. If attendees complained about bar lines, that could mean adding another bar the following year. That also means improving the lineup year by year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve never been in it for the money,\u201d Dupraw said. \u201cIt\u2019s always been a labor of love.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO \u2013 In San Diego\u2019s unstable music festival circuit, The Mustache Bash \u2014 a boutique disco and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":634433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,270412,74940,22863,4085,3549,2247,7264,270413,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-634432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-mariners-point","12":"tag-mission-bay","13":"tag-mission-beach","14":"tag-music-festival","15":"tag-san-diego","16":"tag-san-diego-state-university","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-the-mustache-bash","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116177787069250861","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}