Well this semester is going to basically be the best ever! I’m sorry I haven’t posted as much as I would have liked, but it’s a bit difficult doing too many credits in a semester and be a director of the best festival ever! But, I’m mellowing out this semester, and investing pretty much all my spare time to this festival. I was going over some ideas while on Christmas vacation with my family and got antsy…I have so much in my head and so much excitement for this festival that I just wish it was here already!

As you’ve seen we already have our Main Stage line-up done! This is huge ya’ll. I’m not sure if you remember last year but we were definitely not this far ahead. Now we are starting to look at bands for Stage 2. So that is pretty awesome. This selection is done by a student-led staff that has a majority say and we try and bring in more local bands. Let us know who you think should be up there!

Battle of the Bands: I know some of you are way stoked about applying for that again this year. We have a huge thing coming your way to add onto our Battle of the Bands. It’s going to be way more competitive this year but that is because the reward is massive! Once we have all the info we need either myself, Joel or our Artist Relations guy, Micah, will fill you in on all that info. We are going to be taking submissions through Sonicbids.com which is how we did it last year too. That will probably all come around in February and early March.

Well, I won’t bore you with much more but I just wanted to let you know about some exciting stuff that is coming your way this semester!

Have a great one!

Lys…the Director

Right now I am actually at a conference in Nashville with the CFA (Christian Festival Association) where about 40 of the nations top directors get together and discuss festival and encourage each other in our ministry to all of you!

I have to say, I have been so pumped by this conference. I’ve always wondered with the business and stress of it all if it’s hard to start to loose the ministry of it but, man, being in this room with these people they totally have ministry as their #1 priority. It has encouraged me to participate with them and pray for them as they try to make the best decisions as far as bands and speakers go to encourage you, your friends, your parents, your youth pastors and mentors all over the country.

As far as our festival goes I wanted to let you all know that we are seriously considering having a seminar speaker at our fest other than our fantastic ministry through Interlinc. We really want to know who you all think will be a great ministry to the teens and the parents/youth pastors as well. So please give us your feed back!

Also, check out our website continually and invite us to be your friend on Myspace and Facebook. We’d love to keep you updated on what we’re doing and we’d love to continue to see how we can minister to you. Plus we love seeing your pictures, where your lives are going and how we can encourage you all to the best of our ability.

I’ll keep posting as we go along to let you know how things are going and where we’re at. Let me just say our potential line-up looks pretty hot!

God bless you all, keep on rockin!

Alyssa Marshall
Agapefest 2009 Director
317 E. College Ave
CPO 31
Greenville, IL 62246