NORMAN, Okla. — In an unfortunate era of regular closures and reorganizations that have seen some of Oklahoma’s best venues pulling further and further away from live music, few spaces have shown the same level of tenacity and commitment to the scene as Norman’s Opolis.
When original Opolis owners Andy and Marian Nunez announced in 2022 that the “micro-venue” would be shuttered – at least temporarily – plans started forming among performers and the space’s small staff (all local performers themselves) to take over ownership as a worker-owned co-op.
And so began a second life for the Opolis in February of 2023, spearheaded by musicians, for musicians.
Since then, they’ve seen fundraisers, monthly showcases, expansions of the all-vegan food menu, and most notably, a last-minute scramble to salvage acts from the sadly canceled final day of 2024’s Norman Music Festival for a next-day makeup festival as Tomorrowfest.
All of this has ingratiated the venue even further into the ground-level local scene, reaffirming the space’s commitment as a stage for everything from indie-rock and acoustic folk to punk, metal, weirdo experimentation, and more.
Now, as the summer gives way to fall and the town of Norman bursts back to life with college kids, art walks, and creative expressions galore, Opolis is once again spotlighting the scene’s most left-field and hyper-indie acts with the two-day blowout mini-fest they’re calling Autumn Daze September 27th and 28th.
“We’re really kind of harkening back to Andy and Marian, the original owners,” said worker-owner Sarah Reid. “They used to do a little Summer Daze festival during the city’s downtime. So we wanted to do something like that when kids are back at school to celebrate the end of summer and beginning of fall.”
After the brutal, record-breaking summer heat helped to keep lots of concertgoers at home through the season, the hope is to kick off the autumn time with the same kind of energy and cross-genre community spirit that brings crowds out en masse each year for Norman Music Fest.
“Opolis is always the most fun when you get a whole bunch of bands and people and everyone’s kind of packed in there,” worker-owner Laine Bergeron added. “So it’s always good to have a little mini-fest, and that’s actually something that we’re hoping to start rolling out seasonally.”
But even as plans and wishes for a recurring mini-festival event throughout the year have been brewing for awhile, this one came together a bit more naturally and even a little unexpectedly.
“That weekend actually took a few different forms before it kind of manifested into this festival,” Bergeron explained. “We had this touring band, [Cali punk rockers] Bushfire, already set to come through, so we were putting a bill together with them looking at three or four other bands. And then we’d been talking to [recent local art-pop breakout] YZMN about setting something up at the same time.”
With so many acts already vying for time on September’s last weekend, they decided almost on a lark to expand the bill out and launch it as the first of their planned recurring festivals.
“We just reached out and sort of asked everyone ‘hey, do you want to ramp this up a bit?’” said Bergeron. “And everyone was up for it and on board.”
That meant reaching out to other locals and filling out the weekend with as many different acts and sounds as could fit.
The line-up
Across the two-day lineup, you’ll find electro-experimenters Party Water, the acoustic indie-pop of Sky Hemenway and Baileyboy, the dreamy piano stylings of Lauren Sonder, heavy-hitting psych-punk from Ugly Cowboys, Psychic Baths, and Emma Goldman Sachs, and even beats from deep-house DJ Flash Jordan, among plenty more.
What you won’t find on the lineup, however, is anything like a “headline” slot or anything elevating the artists above each other or pitting them into battle for status.
At the Opolis – just like its new owner-operated staff structure – everyone comes in on a level playing field.
“Maybe it’s an extension of the co-op thing, but I guess when we’re putting a show together, we just don’t really think in terms of headliners,” Reid said. “Our bread and butter is these local shows and local artists, and so it’s just about putting together bands that want to play together and want to put on a good show with all of our powers combined.”
For the new Opolis, just as it was with the original ownership and the original scene in which it sprung to life, the space is important, but the community is the goal.
“I really like something that Marian told me when we were in the process of transitioning, and that’s that every artist that comes through kind of fills up what Opolis is themselves,” Bergeron said. “It’s not just a place on its own. It gains its character by the community and the people coming through.”
Autumn Daze at the Opolis in Norman kicks off at 6 pm Friday, September 27th, and again at 6 pm Saturday, September 28th.
For times, tickets, and more information, including the full lineup of performers for both days, visit opolis.org.
You can find out about local music and performance happenings in the OKC metro weekly in this music column by Brett Fieldcamp. | Brought to you by True Sky Credit Union.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.