The annual festival season always kicks off with the Brite Winter Festival, taking place outdoors in February (!) It began as a casual party in 2010 at a park along the Cuyahoga River in the Flats with less than a thousand people present. It moved up to Ohio City for several years where it grew massively in size and then down to the West Bank of the Flats. Last year, its 16th, it moved across the river to the East Bank.
As regular attendees know, there are multiple stages with bands of various genres, heavily on indie rock, at various stage of development. And for musicians who are good with playing in potential frigid weather, with possibly even a blizzard (it’s happened), applications are now open for the 17th annual festival taking place February 21, 2026. If you think you can endure these unpredictable conditions, here’s the place to go to apply: