3rd Annual Brooklyn Music Festival comes to Governors Island

August 4, 2016 By Scott Enman Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Festivalgoers dance at last year’s Brooklyn Music Festival. Photos courtesy of What's Up New York Nora Rodriguez-Cortez

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Put on your dancing shoes, because the third annual Brooklyn Music Festival is coming to Governors Island this Sunday.

The uniquely Brooklyn-grown festival will take place at Colonels Row from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will feature a plethora of talented artists hailing from our fair borough. The event is free, but attendees are encouraged to make a $10 donation. A portion of all donations will go toward The Center Against Domestic Violence NYC.

The festival will have house, pop, disco, funk and alternative rock artists perform, and the festival grounds will boast two unique stages.

The Love Stage has New York City-based all-girl band Lez Zeppelin headlining. Lez Zeppelin is known for its distinctive gender-bending sound of Led Zeppelin’s music. Also performing on the stage will be DJ Ease and Brooklyn’s own Shinobi Ninja and Ocean Noir.

The Sunset Grooves stage will have exclusively house music; tunes will be provided by the likes of Michael Suarez, Jake Lama, Tr(otter), Travisty, Harper and Eskuche & Nu Sky.

“We created Sunset Groove because I live in Sunset Park,” founder and producer of the Brooklyn Music Festival Nova Bonilla told the Brooklyn Eagle. “Sunset Groove is this kind of mellow place where people can listen to house music and have a beer and kind of just schmooze through the festival. We wanted to give it that lounge feel where people can just hang out.”

Unlike many music festivals that disallow re-entry, the Brooklyn Music Festival encourages its attendees to walk around, rent a bike and explore Governors Island.

“The place is beautiful,” said Bonilla. “There’s an in-and-out element. You can come in have a beer, listen to some music, have something to eat, leave and ride a bike, and come back in and have another beer. That’s the beautiful thing about our festival. You also have a beautiful view of Lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.”

Various Brooklyn-based companies will be serving refreshments at the festival.

“One of the goals for me was to help Brooklyn businesses and Brooklyn companies, so we really searched out and pinpointed the companies we wanted, so we have Coney Island Beer as our official beer,” said Bonilla. “We have Sam Ash music as our official music store. Sam Ash Music was started in Brooklyn on Kings Highway.

“Also, [Brooklyn] Borough President Eric Adams has been very supportive of the festival,” Bonilla added.

In addition, the festival will have a Bring Your Own Art gallery, where Brooklyn artists can bring their artwork to be showcased during the festival.

There will also be a flea market called Albee Square where many Brooklyn vendors can sell their Brooklyn-made merchandise. Everything from earrings to T-shirts to baby clothes will be sold.

“We get a little bit of, ‘Hey! Governors Island isn’t Brooklyn,’ but it’s closer to Brooklyn than it is to Manhattan,” said Bonilla. “Governors Island gets its electricity and water from Brooklyn. And Google has Colonel’s Row, where our event is, as a Red Hook zip code — so that’s even better!”