KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A festival intended to use music to address mental health awareness and suicide prevention is going virtual this year because of COVID-19.
The third annual You Matter Festival is Saturday, Aug.15, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. A link from which to view the festival will go live closer to the event start time. Attendees will be able to find the link on the festival’s website.
Founder and incoming high school senior Will Gurley said five bands will take turns performing from a stage and three speakers will give live presentations.
This year’s festival will also include some pre-recorded pieces.
Digital Sound Systems will broadcast the performances in real-time with professional standards.
Gurley said he is optimistic this year’s event has the chance to reach more people than the group's previous festivals which took place at the Blue Valley Recreation Sports Complex.
“This is a more intimate setting than we’ve had before. It’s not a speaker on stage in front of a couple thousand people, it’s a speaker on your TV screen, blown up to supersize, speaking to just you and your family,” Gurley said.
He’s encouraging people to watch the concert in small groups with people they’ve been around during the stay-at-home orders.
Gurley, who said he has contemplated suicide himself, said now more than ever is an important time to speak about mental health.
“When somebody breaks their arm, you say, ‘Hey, what happened to your arm?’ But when somebody is struggling with their mental health or depression, it’s like, ‘Oh, we don’t talk about that here.’ We want to break down that wall. We want it to be something you can talk about,” Gurley said.
Johnson County Mental Health Center said from January to July this year there have been 47 deaths by suicide in the county. The county recorded 39 such deaths in 2019 and 49 in 2018 over the same seven-month period.
