Support Gaze in the Garden: A Community-Built Music Festival

Hi! I’m Jess Bond, a 19-year-old college student, artist manager, and founder of Bond Booking, a small but growing DIY booking agency representing over 30 emerging artists across the East Coast.

On July 12th, I’m launching the biggest project of my career so far: Gaze in the Garden, an 11-hour, community-driven music festival in Patchogue, NY. It features over 20 bands, local vendors, and hundreds of people coming together to celebrate independent music, art, and the culture that gives it life.

What makes this festival different is that it’s entirely built from the ground up. It’s just me, my best friend Aiden, and the artists, all of us working together to create something real and meaningful.

This event is about more than music. It’s about what can happen when young people take initiative, when the local scene shows up for one another, and when we create space for new voices to be heard.

But more importantly, this festival is also about giving back. We’ve partnered with Hungry for Music, a nonprofit that puts instruments into the hands of children who would otherwise go without. Whether it’s a trumpet for a fifth-grader or a drum set for a teen with big dreams, Hungry for Music helps kids discover themselves through sound. We’re donating 15% of sponsorships, including from this campaign, directly to that mission.

Whether you can give $5 or $50, your support will directly help finalize the pieces that make this event possible, and every single donor, no matter the size of your gift, will have their name displayed on our venue’s digital screens every hour during the event. It’s a small way for us to show how deeply we appreciate the people who helped bring this to life.

Thank you for believing in music, and thank you for supporting young entrepreneurs and musicians.

With love and gratitude,

Jess Bond