Kirk Franklin will headline the third annual Questapalooza at Quest Community Church.
Urban gospel star Kirk Franklin will headline Questapalooza 2008, which is moving to Labor Day weekend.
Questapalooza, which is in its third year, is an outreach event presented by Quest Community Church that is also becoming one of Central Kentucky's highest profile Christian pop music events outside of the Ichthus Festival. This year's Questapalooza, Aug. 31, will actually give attendees a chance to see an act they missed at this year's Ichthus. Kutless, whose June 13 Ichthus performance was scuttled by thunderstorms, will also be playing on a bill that will be filled out by needtobreathe.
But topping the bill will be Franklin, an artist Quest associate pastor Justin McCarty says the church was so eager to get, they moved the Questapalooza date to book him before he heads off on a European tour. The first two Questapaloozas were the second full weekend in September.
"We got to meet him at a meeting of churches in the Willow Creek Association," McCarty says of Franklin, "and we were really impressed with him."
The 3,000-member Quest congregation has also been hearing and singing music by Franklin, one of the most successful artists at crossing over from the gospel to Christian pop music markets in the past decade.
In its first two editions, Questapalooza has been a successful tool for recruiting new members to the church off of Reynolds Road.
"Last year, we had 6,000 people show up," McCarty says. "That means there were a lot of people here who had never been on the Quest campus before."
He said there were no formal attendance goals for this year's event, but hopes are that the combination of Franklin's broad popularity and being on a holiday weekend will help the event top itself once again.
"We're sort of hoping to make this a destination event for the Holiday weekend," McCarty said. "People can come out and enjoy the rides and food and fellowship and music and there's no school the next day."
McCarty said tickets should go on sale in late July or early August. Watch the festival website and Copious Notes for more information.
I go to that Church! And I'm totally psyched about Questapalooza. I have been doing like they say to, "Invite like crazy!!"
Posted by: Courtney | August 26, 2008 at 04:24 PM