The Olympia Funk Festival returns for its fourth and biggest year.
What I hadn’t really considered until working on this story was how valuable something like the Olympia Funk Festival is, for one specific reason: it takes place in the winter. The Pacific Northwest is full of many people with peculiar predilections, but even the freakiest of us must admit that the doldrums of winter, lacking even the fairy tale blanket of snow, are a slog to get through.
Funk, then, is an ideal antidote, with music that is made with the precise intention to get your body moving, get your heart pumping, and inspire all manners of warmth between you and your fellow revelers. Even the danceless among us, who associate movement with jagged elbows and banging of heads, can find a groove in some good funk music.
In a flurry of activity in the Thurston County planning community, Danielle Westbrook offered that some of the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee funds should go toward a music festival. That was back in 2023, and that little suggestion inspired the creation of the Olympia Funk Festival, which found life just six months later.
Westbrook, an established member of the Olympia non-profit scene, was also a musician who had spent some time in a funk group of her own. When a music festival was decided upon, it wasn’t long before the Olympia Funk Festival became the project, with Westbrook, Alan Rose, and Richard Williams being the ones to spearhead the event.
“We’re kind of limited by the amount of venues we have in Downtown Olympia,” says Westbrook. “Capitol Theater is our biggest venue, so we’re capped at whatever their capacity is. But, after the first year, we grew, by adding a third venue, which is the Olympia Center. Third year, we added a fourth, free venue, which is the Elk Lodge. So, we keep adding places to grow into, but we’re still capped at our biggest venue. We grow by giving the community more opportunities to engage.”
In the few years since the Funk Fest has been up and running, they’ve expanded to include more free opportunities for people to participate. Workshops on how to create funk, shows that are open to the public, and even programs that give instruments to those in need — these are the special contributions that the Funk Fest has been making to the community. The way Westbrook describes it, the tendrils of Funk Fest reach throughout the nonprofit foundation of Olympia, connecting those in need with the folks who are able to provide.
And so, we have the 4th Annual Olympia Funk Festival, sometimes known as Funk Off!, and another lineup of acts that will get you out of your seat and get your brittle, PNW-chilled body moving. In January, from the 29th through the 31st, Olympia will be packed to the gills with music that is not only funk-indebted, but that leans out into more interesting territory.
This time around, the ideas of funk music seem to be expanding more into the global sphere, with Cuban artist Cimafunk landing the headlining spot; Cimafunk’s afrocuban dance is enticing, but certainly more energetic than what might have otherwise been included in the Funk Fest. Meanwhile, Toyesauce and Super Sonic Shorties both feature the kind of Southern American soul and funk and impeccable amount of chops that’s impossible to replicate.
All the way down the line, 2027’s Funk Fest is full of bands that either bring their own definition to your nervous system, or will expose your hips and spines to the kind of rhythms that might be alien to you, but trust us, you’ll like ‘em.
Photos by Mike Savoia, Savoia Photography.
WHAT:
Olympia Funk Festival – Funk Off
WHERE:
Capitol Theater, 206 5th Ave., Olympia
The Olympia Ballroom, 116 Legion Way SE, Olympia
& Other Venues
WHEN:
January 29-31
COST:
Tickets from $0-$179
LEARN MORE:
https://www.olyfunkfest.com