Beer, bikes and music! Your guide to the upcoming Bellingham festival created by locals
The Northwest Tune Up Festival is back for its second annual event that was starting by local business owners and community members.
The three-day bike, beer and music festival is held as a “celebration of PNW culture,” according to the event’s website, and includes live music performances, beers from across the Northwest and mountain bike tracks and exhibits from July 14-16.
The festival will take place rain or shine and is at 1145 Granary Ave. in Bellingham.
“At the core of this festival lies a group of passionate community members dedicated to creating an event that celebrates their local mountain bike and outdoor communities,” event marketing manager Steph Nitsch said in a news release.
The festival was started by Eric Brown, the trail director for the Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition (WMBC), and Brandon Watts, the founder and president of Freehub Magazine, a mountain bike publication. With Brown and Watts, ten other local industry veterans, mountain bikers and outdoor enthusiasts put the festival together.
“The Northwest Tune-Up was created specifically to support the great outdoor organizations in Whatcom County that make it such an amazing place to live and recreate,” Brown said in the news release.
“I personally love our local community and The Northwest Tune-Up seemed like the perfect mix of festivities to help celebrate what makes Bellingham so great. The local response has been super positive and overwhelmingly supportive, to say the least, and the folks traveling from out of town are getting a glimpse to what makes this place so darn special,” Watts wrote.
This year, the NW Tune Up will feature 24 different bands that will play later into the night than last year.
“This year’s Tune-Up line-up was supercharged by the outpouring of artist excitement coming out of last year’s event. We continue to prioritize music discovery, local and regional favorites and headliners who bring energy and soulfulness to our unique festival grounds,” the festival’s talent director, Hunter Motto, wrote in the news release.
For beer lovers, the festival’s beer garden will have beer and ciders from 24 local breweries. All profits from the beer garden will fund the Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition’s trail projects, community events and education programs.
The festival will also include a 3-day makers market featuring local artists and entrepreneurs.
For bike enthusiasts, the festival has multiple bike exhibits, demos, clinics and rides on Galbraith Mountain.
The festival is also family friendly and features events for all ages such as a zero gravity bike show, chainsaw carving and viewing the races.
Many activities and events are free and open to the public including the Bellingham Makers Market, Kulshan Trackside Brewery, kids bike zone, exhibitor village, The Portal Container Market, Zero Gravity Bike shows and spectating pump track races, airbag jump sessions and bike skill zones.
Certain events and activities require a festival pass, such as bike demos, bike shuttles, the WMBC beer garden, concerts, live wood carving, bike clinics and live mural painting. Participating in races also require additional ticketing.
Tickets are available online and range from $5 to $225 each depending on age, amount of days attended, VIP access and overnight lodging options.
This story was originally published June 27, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
