Marking its 12th year Sept. 26-28, Cincinnati’s MidPoint Music Festival has developed a reputation as the place to find the next big thing. Many of last year’s performers made year-end lists for Best Album or Best New Artist in major music publications such as Spin, Fader, Pitchfork, NME, Filter and Rolling Stone.

The list of recent MPMF performers includes Dirty Projectors, Best Coast, The Walkmen, Dinosaur Jr., Tom Tom Club, Ralph Stanley, Andrew Bird, Cut Copy, The Joy Formidable, Okkervil River, Booker T Jones,  Felice Brothers,Those Darlins, Mates of State, Phantogram, Surfer Blood, Caribou, A Place to Bury Strangers, Holy F*ck, Fang Island, Toro y Moi, TEEN, Tennis, Lord Huron, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Cults and Heartless Bastards.

Attendance has grown along with the buzz, jumping from 13,500 in 2008 to more than 27,000 in 2012. Sales of three-day MPMF wristbands were up significantly last year, and the expansion into Washington park helped boost box office as well.

As for the buzz, MidPoint has more than 8,400 Facebook fans www.facebook.com/midpointmusicfestival, and 3,000 Twitter followers. https://twitter.com/MidPointMusic . Like and follow us to stay in tune and up-to-date with MPMF.

MPMF expanded its annual footprint in a big way in 2009, when it began sponsoring the annual MidPoint Indie Summer Series on Fountain Square, downtown Cincinnati’s main public meeting space. The free Friday night series completed its fourth summer in 2012, with another exciting schedule of national, regional and local performers. 

Mark your calendars now for MPMF.13: Sept. 26-28.