Sh'BANG Festival, 246 Old Highway 99N, Bellingham, WA (2026)

09/02/2026

🗑️ WE DUMPED THE WHOLE LINEUP 🗑️

The full Sh’Bang lineup is officially out in the wild!!! Dig through it, find your must-sees, start plotting your weekend, and prepare accordingly.

FULL LINEUP → LINK IN BIO

See you little freaks in a couple days 💥🎪🗑️

📷: Tristyn

09/01/2026

🏁 THE SH’DERBY IS BACK 🏁

Don’t miss the Off-Road Daredevil Downhill Soapbox Derby — Saturday at 1PM! The event that started the whole Sh’Bang!!

Watch 10 debonair daredevils throw their bodies down an 810-foot track in DIY race carts they built themselves, risking life and limb for glory, chaos, and your entertainment.

Catch the action from the Meadow behind the Saloon or head to the Pirate Ship, where the MCs will be holding down the finish line!

📖 THERE’S A SH’DERBY ZINE!
Never seen the derby before? Grab a limited-run zine with a guide to each race, then fill out the scoreboard inside and keep track of who’s absolutely owning the track.

🎟️ WIN A RIDE IN A DERBY CAR!
The Sh’Derby ends with a RAFFLE. If your name gets drawn, you’ll get a seat in one of the derby cars tied to the tow-train and take an exclusive victory lap around the festival grounds.

Raffle tickets will be available during the derby at the Pirate Ship and at the merch booth anytime before the drawing.

SATURDAY • 1PM
🏴‍☠️ Finish Line: Pirate Stage

Come yell. Come score the races. Come witness questionable engineering at high speeds. 🏎️💨

📷: Sam Glinsmann

08/31/2026

Ani jan Ani jan is a multidisciplinary artist and songstress, creating modern trip hop and alternative dark dream pop sounds in the pursuit of healing and exploring our shadows. Born in Armenia, her immigrant journey landed her in Seattle where she creates her art.

Friday, 7:45pm - 8:30pm @ The Beach Stage

༶ ȶɦɛ ʍɨֆȶʏ ƈʀɛʋɨƈɛ ɛӼքɛʀɨɛռƈɛ ༶ is an immersive dreamscape of light and shadow, blending both digital and analogue techniques to create a hypnotic world of shifting silhouettes. Through projection-mapping, video feedback, and classic shadow-distortion magic, movement transforms into a colorful, living, psychedelic story.

Friday Night (Saturday Morning), 2:00am - 3:00am @ Cartoon Caravan

Urks Kurth is a multidimensional, interdisciplinary, omninonbinary artist with a physical form currently based in Portland, OR. Filled with irreverent humor, word play, and ecstatic nonsense, urks embodies a galaxy of characters, clowns, and chaos as they create performance, video, installation art, and more. Their work is expansive, experimental, and exploratory— leaning into collective creation, weaving the dream of a radical q***r utopia into reality, and encouraging pleasure and play through the creation of immersive worlds.

Friday, 10:00pm - 11:30pm @ Cartoon Caravan

Danielle Dwyer is a wild and rainbow-filled creature who isn’t afraid to go into the mucky muck of this world as long as they have a song to sing (spoiler alert-they ALWAYS have a song to sing!).

Sunday, 4:00pm - 5:15pm @ Beach Stage

Nancy Ross has been an avid swing dancer for 6 years now. She appreciates the playful conversation that can be shared in a social dance. No partner needed. Lindy hop is one of the happiest dances around! It keeps your on your toes and makes it easy connect to new people! Nancy is also a swing dance singer. Her band “the great swing rebellion” is called upon as a swing dance band for swing socials across Southern California. Nancy holds her BFA in musical theatre and loves the nature of bringing community together through dance and music! It’s the universal language!

Bearded Ladies are a four piece, theatrical folk band. Singing songs from ages past as well as contem

08/30/2026

The wind seeks to erase the performer/observer barrier through a participatory offering. Inviting all to collaborate in a trans spacial sonic exploration of sound, visuals, movement and costume. We bring an offering of improvisation music and dance deep rooted in purpose and intention while seeking to morph, adapt, and collaborate with the rich community of ideas that sweat from the pours of sh’bang. Our dream is to facilitate a three hour morning jam beneath the grandmothers atop the hill. An offering to the ancestors. Something we have all explored deeply in spontaneity at sh’bang yet seek to hold space for a deeper and more inclusive dive into this phenomenon.

Saturday, 11:30am - 12:30pm @ Cartoon Caravan

Tyson Ayers (www.soundcave.org) is a series of interactive art installations that surround a person in 1000’s of piano strings. these strings create the natural phenomena of sympathetic resonance that echoes every sound created inside so profoundly that it affects our sense of space. all of the strings are additionally tuned to innovative systems tyson created combining principles of sound healing, mathematical tuning, ancient scales and astronomical frequencies. the accompanying performances and workshops are both mind blowing and awe inspiringly beautiful.

At its core, the Musician’s Path is a system of self-cultivation through joy based learning. breaking radically from traditional music pedagogy, this method helps each student find their own path while teaching the foundational language of music itself in the easiest way possible. the Musician’s Path has dramatically helped both complete beginners through expert musicians quickly unlock foundational keys to fluently understand and create the music they want to share with the world.

Sunday, 2:30pm - 3:30pm @ Cartoon Caravan

Venenosum

Black/death metal band from Bellingham,WA consisting of key members of the local metal scene.

Saturday, 12:00am - 1:00am @ The Tripping Hazard

Wasabi Samba

Whether you’re looking for a Latin Band, Rock Band, or World Music Band, Wasabi Samba has got you covered with their diverse repertoire and high-energy performances. From sultry boss

08/29/2026

Based in Oakland, CA, SOFIA MAE is an electronic dreampop-inspired indie band. They weave lush synth textures with gorgeously emotive vocals. Vaporwave meets psych-pop under a sunset and glitter dream. Sofie comes from years of singing jazz standards on the streets of New Orleans. Scott, With his background in classical and electronic music, explores new sounds with synthesizers. With their diverse musical backgrounds and drive for exploration, they have found their unique voice in music.

Sunday, 5:30pm - 6:30pm, Saloon Stage

Spencer Sprocket ! Juggling, magic and all ages comedy! Intriguing audiences across the NW and beyond with his unique blend of high energy juggling and fascinating sleight of hand magic for everyone!

Saturday, 7:30pm - 9:00pm, Cedar Stage

A giant puppet play created by String and Shadow , “Night at the Grand Opera” is a frenzied romp through a candlelit night at the Opera. Rococo extravagance is fashioned with elaborate cardboard sets that collapse and unfold to reveal the many great dramas of the opera house (not all of which happen on stage.) Love triangles, converging revolutionary plots, art-loving flies and stilt-walking vermin are brought to life with cardboard and paper-mache. All ages.

String and Shadow Puppet Theater is a theater company based in Olympia, Washington. With cardboard, fabric, and paper mache, their visually stunning performances incorporate music, dance, and circus arts to tell original stories that engage the imaginations of their audiences. In the words of an audience member, “String and Shadow’s worlds of fantasy and fable pluck at the strings of universal innocence, wonder, and joy.” Emerging during the pandemic with Drive-In performances, String and Shadow aims to strengthen communities and provide accessible art, often through donation-based or free events. Since 2023, they have toured regionally and nationally throughout the United States.

Friday, 7:30pm - 8:30pm, Cedar Stage

Style King of the Week . The year is 1995. Your dad is downstairs, drinking Scotch and listening to his collection of hard bop vinyl records. Upstairs, your older sister is smoking w**d and playing cut-and-paste te

08/28/2026

Raggedy and Androgeny
An ever evolving multi-disciplinary performance artist rooted in q***rness as a space of transformation, disruption, and possibility. JoJo Ruby work meets at the intersection of drag, burlesque, clowning, spoken word, video, ambient character work, and puppetry, crafting strange, tender, and subversive worlds on stage. They also organize The April Fools, a clown collective creating connected community through counterculture and catharsis—offering belonging while bridging into activism and mutual aid.

Friday, Sep 4, 8:30pm - 9:30pm, Transjoy Showcase @ Saloon Stage

Stevie Smitty
In the PNW you can hear tape hiss from the trees. Everyone has a basement and keeps jars of pickled vegetables. Sawtooth, soaked in Olympia rain and now Portland living, are the Saturday Night Live band for Pacific Northwest punk houses. Maybe if Music From Big Pink was actually music from across the damp street it would sound something like this. The warmth of early 70’s records are present, from Harvest to Fragile, as well as the traces of pioneer west coast power hippies Little Wings and Lee Baggett. American music moves around, never staying still. Sawtooth will let you ride along, but the road goes every which way but loose. Everything but predicable.

Sunday, 12:45pm - 1:30pm, Beach Stage

Shanties and Stories with Strangely Doesburg
Strangely comes from a youth as a boat dwelling beardo with an undeniable skill for crowd work, and a penchant for balancing things on his face. Now an international professor of niche nerd-doms who plays accordion in ever more impressive ways, Strangely is renowned for leading performances that walk the line between sing-along and barely contained riot. Hailed as a “charismatic and slightly deranged,” [outinperth] “tour de force.” [fringereview], Strangely’s performances are always a “meeting with the unusual.” [KingsRiverLife]

Sunday, 6:15pm - 7:30pm, Pirate Ship

Shelby Natasha🧦 is an alt folk project based in Seattle. Inspired by an upbringing growing up between China and the PNW, our music is a blend of the folk music of both cultures, reimagined with a modern production twist. With ghostly vocals, guzheng (chi

08/25/2026

News From Everywhere, a theatrical performance
richie rhombus

Hi, I’m Richie Rhombus, a social artist, visual storyteller, and experience creator. I make art experiences that expand and play with social constructs. I use drawing, performance, and interactive experiences as a way to communicate stories and actions into social reality. My work and collaborative art has also been exhibited in MoMA Ps1 NYC, DrawInternational France, Theatre Row Times Sq. NYC, IVAM Contemporary Art Museum of Valencia Spain, Counterpulse Theater San Francisco, and spaces throughout NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, and The Bay Area.

Friday, Sep 4, 9:00pm - 11:00pm Cartoon Caravan Stage

Not Your Therapist
Settle into a pair of wireless headsets and let the outside world melt away. Through a blend of atmospheric tracks, nature soundscapes, and guided parts-work exploration, you’ll be led on a journey to meet your internal protectors, find your center, and deeply regulate your nervous system.

Sunday, Sep 6, 10:00am - 11:30am, Cedar Stage

Onyx After a year and a half of DJ experience in the PNW scene, Onyx Ocean quickly established herself as a force to be reckoned with.

Her most notable recent appearance was as the opening act for The Crystal Method at Nectar Lounge.

Whether you find her at a renegade, warehouse, or festival stage, her sets are crafted with intentional energy and emotional depth. Prepare yourself for a journey through dynamic atmosphere and driving basslines.

Friday, Sep 4, 10:00pm - 11:00pm, @ The Saloon Bandstand

Ow wOw mEoW
oW wOw mEoW is a puppet duo, anti-folk band, and experimental performance duo made up by pompom pirate and cornbread jimmy sweet. Pompom is an herbalist, therapist, and clown described as a “schizoanimist with a heart of gold,” and cornbread jimmy is a sculpture, puppeteer, and experimental performer whose whose work “shocks people out of their everyday lives and transports them into a world of mutant giants riding motorcycles.” Their work often involves Interactive storytelling, absurdist musical punk theater, “body horror, but cute,” clowning trees, existential bathroom humor, anarchist memes, dinner party execu

08/20/2026

Eli Wills presents: WORM SALOON 🪱🤠
swing open the little dirt doors and belly up to the mud bar, partner.
WORM SALOON is a DJ set for rootin’, tootin’, boot-scootin’ invertebrates and the worm-curious alike. A celebration of the humble worm: soil tiller, trash eater, underground drifter, and slippery little outlaw who knows that the secret to a good life is staying low, helping your neighbors, turning rot into riches, and wiggling onward.
expect worm-tivities, grimey bass, dirt-dancing, suspicious saloon behavior, and enough collective squirming to rattle the floorboards.
check your bones at the door.
grab yourself a tall glass of wet dirt. bring a hat.
yee. and furthermore: haw. 🪱
Saturday, Sep 5, 2:30pm - 3:30pm, Saloon Bandstand

Lucy Juggles is a professional circus and burlesque artist and brings a raw and passionate enthusiasm to the stage with a unique collection of erotic circus acts that put the “harm” in “charming.” She works full time as a comedy circus performer and does tricks on the street for money in San Francisco.

Saturday, Sep 5, 11:59pm - 2:00am, Saloon Stage

Mercury Bergren Mercury Bergren is a multidisciplinary artist, acrobat, and androgyne who found themself in circus after a lifetime (well, 20 years) of being too eccentric and and wiggly to be of much use to society though more conventional means. They crashed onto the aerial scene in a rock climbing gym on Lingít Aaní (Juneau, AK) after attending acting conservatory at AADA in New York City (training they now apply to clowning). They have since made Seattle their home base where they hone their skills in aerial, group acrobatics, and coach/manage social circus programs at SANCA. Seattle is also where they founded their own contemporary circus company to tell stories of resistance, mutual aid, and anti-fascism, called Circus Radix. Their whole goal is to see more diverse stories on our stages and to live in a world where people have more options for moving through it. To that end, they’ve had the privilege of travelling internationally to coach adaptive circus and consult with social circus programs in Japan and around the US. When they’re not doing all that they can be f

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