Around Town

Inside the 5th Annual ‘All Things Go’ Fall Classic

The fifth annual All Things Go Fall Classic was bigger than ever, welcoming more than 10,000 music and food fans to the historic, two-day festival at Union Market.

A view of the MisterWives set from Union Market’s rooftop at the 2018 All Things Go Fall Classic. Photo credit: Doug Van Sant.

Girl power fueled the festival weekend, which featured an all-female lineup Saturday — co-curated by Maggie Rogers and LPX (Lizzy Plapinger) — plus a major female headliner on Sunday: Grammy-nominated singer Carly Rae Jepsen.

Carly Rae Jepsen hits the stage as the headliner for Sunday night’s 2018 All Things Go Fall Classic. Photo credit: Doug Van Sant.

With the intention of highlighting on-the-verge female artists and to support the movement towards equal representation in the music industry, Saturday was packed with an exciting roster of innovative female performers, including KAYE, OSHUN and ALMA.

Co-curators Maggie Rogers and Lizzy Plapinger close out Saturday’s festivities at the 2018 All Things Go Fall Classic. Photo credit: Doug Van Sant.

Each artist was hand-picked for the women-exclusive day of music by Rogers and LPX, in collaboration with the All Things Go co-founders. By nightfall, the crowd was bouncing to the sounds of Ravyn Lenae, Jessie Reyez, Billie Eilish and LPX before headliner Rogers brought down the house. 

(L-R) All Things Go partners John Liipfert, Will Suter, festival co-curators LPX and Maggie Rogers, and All Things Go partners Zack Friendly, Stephen Vallimarescu and Adrian Maseda during Jessie Reyez’ set. Photo credit: Doug Van Sant.

A slate of acts over multiple genres rocked sunny Sunday, with performances by Betty Who, MisterWives, Two Feet, The Aces and Cautious Clay, who all paved the way for favorite headliner Jepsen. She closed out the festival with a bang, lighting up Union Market and drawing the biggest crowd of the weekend.

Cautious Clay gives a shout out to D.C. ad his alma mater George Washington University during his performance at day 2 of the 2018 All Things Go Fall Classic. Photo credit: Doug Van Sant. 

In addition to the Fall Classic’s forward-thinking, inclusive musical lineup, fans enjoyed eats from local culinary favorites like Sweetgreen, Timber Pizza, Pinstripes, Bun’d Up, Rocklands, Vice Cream, Shake Shack, JRINK and Compass Coffee, among others.

Betty Who performs her hit song “Somebody Loves You” at the 2018 All Things Go Fall Classic. Photo credit: Doug Van Sant.

Union Market served for a second consecutive year as homebase for the festival, which first launched in 2014 when a quartet of DC natives and friends — Will Suter, Adrian Maseda, Stephen Vallimarescu and Zack Friendly — took their music blog, All Things Go, from the internet to the real world. Since then, and with the 2016 addition of partner John Liipfert, ATG has flourished into a highly anticipated, multi-genre music and food festival that has become a major East Coast entertainment event, drawing past acts like Empire of the Sun, Vince Staples, Young Thug, Foster the People, Passion Pit, Sylvan Esso, KYGO, Future Islands, Bleachers, Tove Lo, Sofi Tukker and more.