An upcoming music festival is going to move people, and its planners are hoping that MetroLink will be their transportation of choice.

City Sound Tracks, a unique new music festival that attempts to bring attention to the benefits of public transportation in the city of St. Louis, arrives on March 27. The brainchild of originator Michael Koscielniak, the festival is presented by What’s Up Magazine, a local social justice publication.

“What’s Up is a non-profit based organization in the city that basically provides transitional employment for homeless people … [This festival is] a great opportunity to publicize this,” Ryan Albritton, Koscielniak’s festival associate, said.

The idea behind the festival is for attendees to ride the MetroLink trains between two different spots where a train ticket is the only admission they need to the music venues; a variety of bands will be playing throughout the day—one at Tom’s Bar and Grill (20 S. Euclid Ave.) located close to the Central West End MetroLink stop, and one at Union Station.

“[Koscielniak] actually came up with the idea. We basically just have one train line, and there’s a lot of cool places right next to these stops … People here don’t traditionally ride and experience these locations and experience these cool places,” Albritton said.

The festival is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. with bands playing at both venues throughout the day.

“The way we’re going to try to schedule it is to try to have people shuttled back and forth,” Albritton said.

The last act will take the stage at 10 p.m. at the downtown venue, and Albritton is hoping that they will shuttle attendees to that location for the last two acts of the festival.

Albritton has been coordinating the music for the festival, lining up bands and securing sound equipment for the day, and he found the search for bands easier than he had first imagined.

“Well, I have a recording studio in he city, so I know quite a bit of musicians,” he said. “Besides that, it was pretty awesome. I filled the band list in three or four days after I sent out the invite. I got tons and tons of contacts from bands that really want to be involved. They’re all doing it for free, because they’re all excited for this.”

He believes that the uniqueness of the festival and the underlying message behind it have played a part in interesting musicians.

“It’s a cool music festival,” Albritton said. “As far as we are aware, something like this has never been done before. They actually wanted to participate in that and were happy for the invitation … We’re getting a great response from bands. We’re having a great response from organizations wanting to sponsor us.”

Albritton has been working with Koscielniak on planning the event since it was first conceived as an event to take place in the fall, a date they moved back in response to local politics.

“We moved this back because of Proposition A that’s on the ballot for April 6 … We’re obviously in support if it. The festival itself is officially neutral about it,” he said.

Proposition A would increase the sales tax in St. Louis County by half a cent that would go toward sponsoring public transportation in the city, funding that has been on the decline for a number of years.

“St. Louis used to be a huge transit city with the largest streetcar system in the country at one point,” Albritton said. “The public grew dense and moved out to the suburbs, making public transportation less practical … But people still clearly need it … It’s obviously very important for us to have it … I think St. Louis is finally starting to realize that we are a real city and we need to start acting like it … If we want to attract people here, we’re going to need things like that.”

On MetroLink’s part, Albritton said that they’re just grateful for the support.

“They are aware of it, but they’re not officially involved,” he said. “They’re pretty amazed that we’re doing it, especially right now. They get so much negative feedback from the community for some reason … They’re just really happy that we’re helping them out.”

Though Albritton and Koscielniak are in the process of starting their own non-profit organization, Tracking Progress, What’s Up Magazine is presenting the festival, as they haven’t officially launched their own.

“[Koscielniak] and I both work for them,” he said. “We’re basically planning the event through them because we’re working on getting our non-profit started, but it isn’t official yet.”

For his part, Albritton is excited about the festival and hopes that it will attract an audience, specifically a college-aged audience, who realize the need for a strong public transportation system.

“We want as many people to come out to this as possible, especially young people,” he said. “They’re a great resource … If this one goes well, we’re probably going to try to do it biannually.”

More information about the festival, including a list of performers scheduled to play, can be found at www.trackingprogress.org, the official website of Albritton and Koscielniak‘s fledgling non-profit.

More information about What’s Up Magazine can be found at its official website www.whatsupstl.com.