We here at Musicfest NW are excited to be celebrating the event's eighth year in Portland, and we'd like to take a moment to look back at how the event started and how it has grown into one of Portland's largest and most well-attended festivals.

With the termination of North by Northwest in 2000, it looked as if Portland was going to be left without a major music festival. Willamette Week, a longtime co-producer of NXNW, saw an opportunity and teamed up with professionals from throughout the local and regional music scene to create the first MFNW in 2001. The initial goal was to create a festival by and for the Northwest music community, to showcase Portland talent. For the first few years this was an exceptionally successful format, with the festival growing at a rate of 25 percent to 30 percent each year. The 2006 festival was the first to include a larger percentage of regional and national acts; festival attendance doubled from the previous year. MFNW will continue to spotlight local artistsat many of its featured venues, but as the years have passed and the festival has grown, many of the headlining acts have become more nationally recognizable.

The 2007 festival was MFNW's most successful festival to date. Attendance almost doubled once again, and for the first time the majority of shows sold out. We were fortunate enough to feature a wide variety of acts in our 2007 festival, including Spoon, Rilo Kiley, the Thermals, the Helio Sequence, Aesop Rock, Clipse, Floater, Roky Erickson, Girl Talk, Okkervil River and many, many more.

One reason the festival has continued to grow is because of the increased participation of many of the sponsors. Last year Nike introduced a new feature to MFNW-a series of daytime concerts featuring national acts such as Cat Power, Bobby Bare Jr., Ghostface Killah, Grizzly Bear and Deerhunter.

Most importantly, MFNW is still about the bands, the music, the fans and highlighting the incredible music scene and community we are fortunate enough to have here in Portland. The bands have the opportunity to gather with peers, engage music-industry professionals and increase their exposure. The fans get to experience the musical brilliance and diversity of the Pacific Northwest, as well as see some of their favorite national acts in one weekend of nonstop music.

MFNW is produced by Willamette Week and generously supported by many sponsors without whom the festival wouldn't be possible. Be sure to check us out this year, Sept. 3-6.