By KATE POSS

Special to The Record

Dovetailing with the South Whidbey Pride Parade and Festival in Langley on June 21, the Summer Daze Soulstice Celebration follows with music, food, beverage and immersive performance from 3-10 p.m. at the Whidbey Island Fairgrounds and Events Center.

LittleBIGFest producers Keegan Harshman and Priscilla Lowry organize the event, which is a fundraiser for the three-day long LittleBIGFest held at the same location Aug. 15-17

Whidbey Island bands will perform June 21, including Animal Arts, Philip Van Seters, Puff N Scrub and Second Line. Other musicians are “local-ish” as Harshman says.

“I’d call Everett local. I’d call Seattle local,” Harshman said. “Four of the bands are on Whidbey. Adrian Xavier and Ska Island are Reggae musicians from Lopez Island.”

This is the second year LittleBIGFest has hosted its event with the South Whidbey Pride community and its focus shares a similar theme — all are welcome to express who they truly are.

“One of our main missions is inclusivity,” Harshman said. “We decided to work in tandem with Pride. We make it one big festive day. We let them know we’ll support them and have both events thrive.”

Harshman is the son of newly retired South Whidbey band director Chris Harshman, who inspired thousands of students to love music. Keegan Harshman, who owns Blue Sound Music in Langley and performs in a number of bands himself, cultivates musical talent and sees the benefit of hosting concerts and festivals.

“For the high school and middle school students, they can see the work they’re doing can be applied now and and in the future,” Harshman said.

Kick Brass, which performs at the August LittleBIGFest, is from the Oak Harbor High School.

The blending of headliner musicians with local talent creates a synergy of experience, according to Lowry.

“Keegan brings in known musicians from broad reaches of the country which serve as inspiration to where one can go,” Lowry said. “LittleBIGFest is not simply an island festival. What makes it so exciting, is each year it grows. It is a vibrant immersive experience.”

Over the past five years, LittleBIGFest has become a culture of its own.

“Our Solstice event, like Earth Day and Winter Solstice are fund raisers for our bigger event, and a reason to keep the music alive throughout the year,” Harshman said. “I like to say this is our fifth year and our third at the fairgrounds. We’re not creating the wheel anymore, we’re spinning it. We’re a well-oiled machine. We have good relationships.”

Cultivating relationships with vendors and artists is where Priscilla Lowry excels. She’s known Keegan Harshman since he was a small boy. She stepped in to help bring in vendors at the early LittleBIGFests, held first at the now-shuttered Roaming Radish on Crawford Road.

“I quickly became Keegan’s EA (executive assistant),” Lowry said. “After we took a break for COVID, it was a conversation of ‘let’s do this together.’ We’ve known each other practically his entire life … a long history of friendship. We bring different strengths. Keegan is involved with music, selections, and scheduling. I take care care of booking food and the artisans. We do co-produce. It’s clearly a labor of love with an emphasis on creating very enticing and vital community events.”

Harshman said they started out small and slowly grew. He likes to use a metaphor from the classic book Stone Soup.

“I brought the water, Priscilla brought the onion. Someone else brought a tomato. Together we make a soup,” said Harshman.

Likewise with the festival community that they’ve begun to create, the soup of LittleBIGFest has continued to attract new ingredients.

“We’re delighted with and dedicated to the wonderful folks who have joined us,” said Lowry. “To do anything that is successful, everyone brings their unique gifts and talents fully to the table. LittleBIGFest is the nucleus.”

Harshman said he’s often heard that folks attend festivals to escape reality. In his mind, reality is the community of the festival and much of what goes on in the bigger world is the fiction.

“I intentionally started this small and had to go with a budget that would work,” Harshman said. “We took a grow as we go philosophy. With that, looking deep into the community for support. it’s about bringing the musicians together. It creates this community family. People that are involved who were sponsors, stepped in to be vendors. A lot of us have been involved for almost the whole time. This is a close knit family. It’s like a family reunion each time we get together.”

For more information, visit littlebigfest.org.