From mid-June through mid-October, Nashville pretty consistently feels like a — well, take your pick of hot-and-muggy metaphor: dog’s breath, Crock-Pot, sauna with the knob ripped off, basket for steaming dumplings. The water is a great place to be, and a few smart folks have figured out ways to combine water excursions with top-notch music. The Sparkle City River Dance, organized and hosted by the Sparkle City Disco crew — that’s disco-loving vinyl DJs David Bermudez and Jonas Stein — is coming back for its 10th year this weekend, and expanding to two days for the first time.
Friday and Saturday, Aug. 21 and 22, they’ll make Bone’s Canoe and Campground in Hurricane Mills, Tenn., home base for a kayak-and-canoe float on the Buffalo River, with two nights of live music and DJ sets.
The general idea is that you’ll arrive on Friday afternoon sometime after 3 p.m., set up your campsite, buy your dinner or munch on what you brought, play some lawn games and watch some more relaxed performances from bands like Ultrafrog and Travollta and DJs like Spice J tag teaming with Notxander. Music will wrap at midnight, and you’ll get up refreshed Saturday morning to hop in a kayak and spend most of the day floating down the river. After some chill time, there’ll be dinner from Spicy Boy’s (included with your ticket), coinciding with the main nighttime party kicking off at 6 p.m. That will run till 3 a.m. and feature locals like a DJ tag-team featuring Maggie Wells and Amy Darling and the Sparkle City Disco fellas (naturally), as well as Costa Rica producer Burika and Los Angeles’ Zach Cowie.
There’s a good bit of other stuff to know, such as: You’ll need your own camping gear, your kayak rental is not included (but ticketholders will get access to a special rate from Bone’s), and there’s a special kind of ticket to buy if you do not want to get out on the water and just want to come for the party on Saturday; regardless, you gotta be on the road by 11 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 23.
The ticket page spells all of that out for you; two-day tickets (including camping) are $125.61 each.
Check out all the details on the Sparkle City River Dance website, and keep up with the festival via its Instagram profile.
