Every year now for ten years, Fort Collins has put on a music festival featuring the best local bands that Fort Collins and the northern Colorado area have to offer. The event is called FoCoMX, put on by FoCoMA. It features over 200 local bands and student pre-sale tickets are $15.

Since the festival began, Colorado State University has always been a big factor. Many of the bands included in the festival include current and former students. This year FoCoMX has taken it a step further by officially partnering with CSU. In exchange for support from the university, FoCoMX has changed its colors to match the school.

While FoCoMX is open to participation from everybody, CSU students in particular are given a huge chance to participate in a growing music scene. Along with the $20 student discount being offered, some students are participating in their first PR campaigns, some are doing media surrounding the event and some are playing in the event.

“I’m excited to be playing in an event this big,” said bass player and CSU student Tyler Weston. “It’s not an opportunity that’s available to newer bands (in) most places.”

Weston’s band, The Kity Project, is playing a 1:45 p.m. slot at The Downtown Artery during the second day of FoCoMX. He is excited and stressed by how amazing the event was last year as a non-student patron, saying he was blown away by his initial interaction with the Fort Collins music scene.

Weston’s band is just starting out, but that is not the case for some of the bands in the festival. Some are a bit further in their journey. Former and current CSU students make up the whole of one of the FoCoMX headliners, Slow Caves, who will also be playing a show at The Ramskeller on April 13. They do this partly in favor to a friend of the band and CSU’s Vice President of External Relations, Tom Milligan.

“Tom Milligan has been one of our biggest advocates,” the band wrote in an email to the Collegian on Monday. “He comes to so many of our shows and gives us so many opportunities to work with CSU. We can’t say enough great things about Tom.”

Milligan had only positive things to say about his experience watching Slow Caves perform.

“They harmonize, but they shred,” Milligan said. “They’re recently signed and I think they’re going to be a big deal before much longer, so it’s cool we get to see them now.”

FoCoMX is interested in having students participate as much as possible in the event, he said.

Slow Caves has taken full advantage of that opportunity and is currently touring the USA in 2017 and released its first national extended play, “Desert Minded” in March. The band calls Fort Collins home, and are excited to play in FoCoMX again this year.

“We can’t wait to shred it up at the Aggie with a ton of other rad bands,” said the Slow Caves band members. They will perform during the 10:45 slot in the middle of nine straight hours of music at the Aggie.

The Aggie Theatre, Avogadro’s Number, Hodi’s Half Note, The Drunken Monkey, Odell Brewing Co. and The Rec Room are just a few names on the list of venues hosting bands for the event. Tickets cost $35 instead of $15 when FoCoMX arrives on April 28 and 29.

Mackenzie Beaulieu can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com or on Twitter @MackenzieBeaul1.