More murals, music and art coming to downtown Sudbury through Up Here festival

By the end of the weekend, there will have been 50 musical shows, five new murals and six mini murals painted as well as several art installations put in downtown Sudbury.

It's all part of Up Here — an urban art and musical festival that takes place each summer in downtown Sudbury.

The muralists come from a variety of places as some are local and others in years past have come internationally.

Jen McKerral, an organizer and co-founder of the festival says there is a committee of local artists who help choose submissions that have come in from muralists.

"So a lot of different people kind of coming together looking at submissions that have come in from all over the world," she said.

"Just picking and choosing some of the stuff that they've researched and some of the stuff that they've seen and they're all pretty plugged in so we get a pretty good perspective there."

Another big part of the festival is the music. Organizer and co-founder Christian Pelletier says he describes it as an emerging music festival.

"We're presenting things that people do not see anywhere else," he said.

"A lot of names you don't know so when you look at the lineup and you're like 'I don't recognize anything on here,' for me, that's so exciting."

Along with the murals, the Up Here festival is also adding a legal graffiti wall on Cedar Street, which McKerral says will allow emerging artists to test our their tags and artwork without getting into trouble.

The festival starts on Friday with several shows starting at 5 p.m. in restaurants and bars in downtown Sudbury.