What is the Hell’s Half Mile Film & Music Festival?

HHM Fest is more than an event for those who sim­ply appre­ci­ate film and music. It’s a grass­roots effort to develop a com­mu­nity that par­tic­i­pates in the arts. The fes­ti­val idea devel­oped from a “wouldn’t it be great…” con­ver­sa­tion, into “we can do it” action. We hope our actions will inspire oth­ers to develop new arts and cul­ture oppor­tu­ni­ties in our community.

We’re reach­ing out to schools with film pro­grams locally, and around the coun­try to give stu­dents the oppor­tu­nity to show their tal­ents. We’re plac­ing our call for sub­mis­sions on indus­try web sites to con­nect with cur­rent and aspir­ing film mak­ers, and attend­ing regional film fes­ti­vals to extend per­sonal invi­ta­tions. Through these efforts we’re posi­tion­ing Bay City as a pro­gres­sive arts and cul­ture community.

What’s with the name?

In the late 1800’s, a cer­tain stretch of Bay City’s river­front was known as Hell’s Half Mile. A strip lined with rau­cous saloons and two-bit hotels where turn-of-the-century log­gers and ship­men would go to blow off steam and take in more than a lit­tle local color.

Time has passed but the same rough-and-tumble spirit of the day is reborn in the Hell’s Half Mile Film & Music Fes­ti­val. Early in it’s his­tory, Bay City had over 80 hotels, hun­dreds of saloons and count­less movie houses and the­aters mak­ing it the enter­tain­ment capi­tol of North­ern Michi­gan. This fes­ti­val is a cel­e­bra­tion of Bay City’s his­tory as an enter­tain­ment destination.

Today, the city boasts a beau­ti­ful down­town river­front with bou­tiques, restau­rants, the­atres, pubs, hotel accom­mo­da­tions and other points of interest.…a state of the art plan­e­tar­ium, art gal­leries, a thriv­ing busi­ness com­mu­nity, an active ship­ping lane for Great Lakes freighters…Downtown Bay City is alive with activity.