(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Fans dance to the band Future Islands at Kilby Court Block Party in Salt Lake City on Thursday, May 15, 2025.
Hearing music from every direction at Kilby Block Party — Utah’s fastest-growing music festival — is to be expected.
After all, that’s what the thousands of people that flock to the festival every year at the Utah State Fairpark experience. Drifting back and forth between stages and soaking up the sonic storm is essentially a rite of passage.
On Thursday, though, fans both new and old experienced an updated, more freeing version of the festival.
There are a few things that make this year’s block party different. Not only is the festival planned to last four days instead of the usual three, but the floor plan has expanded and shifted as well.
One of the smaller stages is inside the Days of ’47 rodeo arena, and the spacing between the other three stages has increased, allowing for both more room for music lovers to relax, sit and eat — and also for less audio bleed between the sets.
There are other subtle changes like more water stations, a new location for the silent disco, and a change in the festival’s record provider — Provo’s 3hive Record Lounge is there this year, instead of Graywhale.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Fans attend the Kilby Court Block Party in Salt Lake City on Thursday, May 15, 2025.
California natives Christian Lape and Natt Johnson noticed some of these changes on Thursday as they split time between the Lake and Kilby stages.
“It’s really cool that everything is much more spread apart,” Johnson said, pointing out how last year two stages were much closer together.
The friends drove 10 hours to be in Salt Lake City for the next five days and made time to stop by Kilby Court, the venue where the block party started in 2019.
Even though the pair grew up in Los Angeles, Lape said the music vibe at Kilby — and in Utah — is much different. In particular, they are fans of the indie lineup the Utah festival always has.
“I love how it’s this idea of, ‘Hey, we don’t really care how old you are, what your experience is. We want you here,’” Lape said.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The band Future Islands performs during the opening day lineup of Kilby Court Block Party in Salt Lake City on Thursday, May 15, 2025.
As the flourishing thrums from the intro of Baltimore synthpop band Future Islands’ “Seasons(Waiting on You),” began to hum, the two friends shared a look of excitement. A teacher from their high school introduced them to the band with this exact track — one they played in the car on the drive to SLC.
“If you are a music lover in the 48 states that are like continental, you should be here right now,” Lape said. “If you can’t be here right now, you should be here next year. This is our second year here. We’re planning on coming back next year.”
As Kilby Block Party continues to grow and attract new music lovers, it simultaneously seeks to remain loyal to locals. That’s how people like David Payne can make their presence known.
Payne runs The Gallery of Fine Hyper-Art — a reclaimed UTA paratransit bus that has been painted black and turned into part art exhibit and part arcade.
“These are locally made arcade games ... it’s basically a gallery to show our own artwork. But the medium is arcade game,” Payne said.
Some of the games were created in the late ’90s and others in the early 2000’s, “the pinnacle of the art form,” as Payne puts it. One of the games is called “JPO in SLC.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Artist David Payne talks about his completely re-imagined arcade games on display to interact with and play inside an old UTA bus turned art museum at Kilby Court Block Party in Salt Lake City on Thursday, May 15, 2025.
“This is a documentary game about this jazz band that used to play around Salt Lake City at midnight, Joshua Payne Orchestra,” Payne said. In the game, users play as Joshua, performing Friday night concerts at different locations around SLC in the early 2000s.
Bringing the gallery on wheels to KBP is something of a homecoming for Payne.
“I’m from the generation that played music at Kilby Court throughout the turn of the century,” Payne said, looking out the windows of his gallery at the gathering crowd, eager to come inside, listen to the music and soak in the atmosphere.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Nic Smith, CEO of S&S Presents, which puts on the Kilby Court block Party, expects 20,000 attendees per day as he joins fans on the first day of the festival in Salt Lake City on Thursday, May 15, 2025.
According to Nic Smith, CEO of S&S Presents, which puts on the festival, they expect 20,000 people per day this year. They’ll come from every state in the nation, Canada, and over a dozen other countries. 56% of ticket buyers are from outside the Beehive State.
This year, over 70 artists will play at the festival. Thursday’s headliner was English rock band New Order; Friday’s is Baltimore-based indie band Beach House; Saturday’s is rock band Weezer; and Sunday’s is electronic duo Justice.
