The festival features more than 50 local musicians in 14 bands, along with visual artists, films, karaoke and trivia.

Waterhole co-owner Eric Munley said he’s been wanting to build a local artist presence at the music venue for a while and in recent years has been booking more local acts. He said there’s more musicians than you would think in a 15-minute radius of the venue creating a variety of sounds in genres like folk, rock, jazz, alternative and country.

The festival is set up similar to the venue’s Winter Carnival schedule — packing as many acts as possible into 10 days. Munley said in this “pre-mud season” time, town is mostly filled with only year-round locals and he hopes the festival is an opportunity for people to get out at a time when it’s easy to stay home.

“The festival is a celebration by the local, for the local,” according to a news release for the event.

Echo with an early version of his projection art. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

On Friday, Sven Curth Trio and Austin and the In-Laws will open for Strange Cereal.

Strange Cereal’s first show was almost exactly one year ago at the Waterhole’s Locals Showcase last April. Friday’s show will be their fourth there.

Frontwoman Emily Dowd said they love playing the Waterhole because its a venue where they don’t hold back. The band has only been around for a year but they’ve already written 15 songs with more on the way. Dowd said it’s been “chaotic, but more fun than anything else.” As cliche as it sounds, she said the band members have a real passion driving them to create.

Dowd was the last to join the band. She had met bassist Chris Poulin and keyboardist Joshu Coppola at the open mic at the Rusty Nail. They were among a group of people who helped talk her into getting over her stage fright and performing.

Poulin and Coppola were working on the Strange Cereal project with guitarist Nick Orton and drummer Nigel Darrah and invited her to be the vocalist. In their first time playing together at the Rusty Nail open mic, Orton and Darrah were working on the instrumental for the song which became the band’s first single “Sick” and Dowd wrote the hook “I’m sick of being sick” in the bathroom.

Austin Petrashune from Austin and the In-Laws performs at the first “Saranac Lake Hootenanny” at The Garagery in November 2023. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

When Dowd joined, Strange Cereal morphed from more of a jam band to more of a rock band.

Even Dowd struggles to describe their sound.

“We all have so many different influences,” she said. “I grew up listening to a lot of punk and metal, and in recent years got more into folk and country. That’s where a lot of my lyrical influence comes from.

Chris has been in punk bands for his whole life. Joshu loves bands like Van Morrison. Nick is a huge Phish fan. Nigel listens to everything.”

She said they’re a rock band with a lot of funk and jazz influence, and they’re getting more into jam with more improvisation. Their new song, tentatively titled “Dancer” — which they plan to debut on Friday — lives up to its name with a pounding four-to-the-floor beat and them “winging it” with improvisations. Coppola is excited to break out his new 50-year-old Moog synthesizer on this song.

Nubble performs at The Waterhole during a local showcase in March 2024. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

On Saturday, The Allens, High on the Hog, and Curt Stager and Kary Johnson will take the stage.

On Wednesday, there will be a screening of the local 1987 indie film “The Beer Drinker’s Guide to Fitness & Filmmaking,” also known as “Sullivan’s Pavilion,” as a benefit for the Saranac Lake Arts and Culture Advisory Board.

The film, directed by Fred Sullivan, is a fictionalized slice-of-life look at a family in Saranac Lake in the 1980s — a feature-length autobiographical documentary that at times resembles a proto-vlog. The film tackles the stresses of life as an artist with several young children in a too-small house with a light-hearted, quirky and humorous tone.

“My father says if people don’t see this movie we’ll starve,” a young Tate Sullivan says.

Munley said there’s a scene shot in the Waterhole featuring Billy Allen and Shamim Allen of The Allens.

Nick Orton and Chris Poulin of Strange Cereal perform at The Waterhole during a local showcase in April 2024. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

On Thursday, there will be a chance to show off local knowledge at a trivia night and a chance to show off vocal chops with karaoke on the big stage, featuring “local celebrities and community members cheering you on.”

The next night is “Adirondack’s Most Curious Night of Music and Visual Art” — featuring Oldest Gull, Doom F**k, Echo, Luisa Mei, Just Ben and Rafa bringing a range of alternative music in doom, noise, EDM, dubstep and ambient with interactive visual art provided by Echo from The Station in Onchiota.

Echo has been doing projection art in Saranac Lake for a year or two now, and feels he’s planted a seed of projection art in town. He’s been doing interactive projections at raves and at Winter Carnival.

Echo said Munley put together the “Lollapalooza of Saranac Lake.”

For this week’s festival, he’ll set up multiple hidden computers at multiple stations with the kaleidoscopic collage of visuals projected on the walls and ceilings.

Mike “Mad Dog” Harrigan of Frankie and the Moonlighters records at Trestle Street in Saranac Lake in November 2024. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

“The idea for me is to always make technology as invisible as possible,” Echo said. “If you don’t see the technology, it makes it more open for anyone to come up.”

The point is to avoid intimidation and invite experimentation.

A piano at a subway station comes with its own set of expectations — it’s restrictive, he said. He wants to get past the barrier of belief that there’s a need for expertise.

Echo commissioned a device from his friend Matt Dickey, a technician at the Wild Center nature museum in Tupper Lake. It is a dark wooden box with six bright red buttons and two black dials — each of which change the visuals in different ways.

He loves the spontaneity and interactiveness of the publicly created and altered art.

“What I’m attracted to is that moment when someone tries something new and they get super stoked about it,” Echo said.

Sometimes people don’t notice it, he said, but it adds atmosphere.

The festival will round out on April 5 with Crackin’ Foxy and Nubble.

The day-by-day schedule for the Festival of the Local is:

¯ March 27 – Frankie and the Moonlighters

¯ March 28 – Sven Curth Trio, Austin and The In-Laws, Strange Cereal

¯ March 29 – The Allens, High on the Hog, Curt Stager and Kary Johnson

¯ April 2 – “The Beer Drinker’s Guide to Fitness & Filmmaking”

¯ April 3 – Trivia and karaoke

¯ April 4 – “Adirondack’s Most Curious Night of Music and Visual Art” featuring Oldest Gull, Doom F**k, Echo, Luisa Mei, Just Ben and Rafa

¯ April 5 – Crackin’ Foxy and Nubble

Tickets are available at saranaclakewaterhole.com/tickets.