With winter persisting, Hangar 9 helped push toward Summer Camp this weekend.

The Summer Camp Music Festival, an annual event in Chillicothe, made an early stop through Carbondale Saturday night with its “On the Road” tour. The tour’s focus is to find local acts and give them the opportunity to play at the festival, taking place May 23-25.

Jason Miles, tour director, said this is the fifth year the festival has travelled in search of bands to fill vacancies in the May lineup.

“We’re trying to see how many spots we have open at Summer Camp every year, and we want to draw in regional bands and bring in more of a regional touch to the festival,” he said.

Each year, tour members seek out bands they might already recognize, or that might be popular around the area. They gather information and set up a venue where the bands may present their talent.

“We pick 12 to16 hotspots every year where the music seems to be really happening,” Miles said. “So everybody who wins each one of these, there’s one person from each night that gets a paid gig at Summer Camp Music Festival.”

Orismo, Copecetic, Soul Census and The Big Idea were the four bands that performed Saturday. Following a series of performances between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., Soul Census was chosen as the local artist to join the festival adventure.

“All the bands that are playing tonight are extremely talented. I enjoy them all,” Gossman said. “Soul Census takes the cake for me and it’s great that Summer Camp is giving them the opportunity to do this.”

The final decision was made through a balloting system where, upon entry, each audience member was given a ticket to vote for a band. Tina Grabow, a tour assistant, said she was excited to help bring the event together.

“In my opinion, music is the only thing that really brings people together in an honest way,” she said. “I take pride in bringing local talent to a broader spectrum.”

Miles said the tour will make 14 stops this year and choose 14 bands to fill the void at Summer Camp. Grabow said the tour has made three stops so far this year.

“We’re going as far east as West Virginia, [west to] Des Moines, we’re doing our finale in Chicago of two nights, two nights in Colorado, Mizzou, Michigan,” she said. “We go north, south, east and west, we go all over.”

However competitive things may become, the tour still encourages community members to take a closer look at area music while promoting the larger acts that share the main stages at Summer Camp, Miles said.

“Hopefully, this draws some people from the Carbondale community, or whatever community we’re in, up to Summer Camp to see the show,” he said.

Jake Saunders can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @saundersfj or by phone at 536-3311 ext. 254.