On Saturday, Nov. 5, the spirit of independence will indeed be in the air at the second annual San Diego Indie Music Fest. With over six stages and 50 artist scheduled to perform, there is truly something for everyone at the festival; the performers run the gamut from hip-hop and R&B to alternative, heavy metal and the many facets that folk and acoustic renditions afford, including acoustic rock, acoustic pop and acoustic blues.

A wealth of diversity is coming together for this one-day event, a collision of the eclectic showcasing national and local bands, from Veruca Salt to homegrown powerhouse Plastic Explosive. I asked the festival’s producers, Alicia Champion and Danielle LoPresti, how the idea for this celebration initially came about.

“San Diego Indie Music Fest was birthed out of a dire need to give more outstanding independent artists and bands a venue where they can be truly celebrated for their art and entrepreneurship, and to also educate the public on what being indie really means,” Champion said.

“‘Indie’ means independent,” LoPresti explained. “Put simply, an independent artist is one on a small record label, as opposed to a big, corporate-owned one. As an example, I often use the analogy that you can go to Walmart to buy a gift for someone, or you can go to your local farmer’s market. The Walmart option supports the already huge corporate-owned superpowers. The farmer’s market option supports small, independent artisans and business owners; which makes our city unique and vibrant and alive, which exists outside the strip mall, outside the TV-commercial reality we are constantly being bombarded with.

“Indie artists are small business operators,” LoPresti continued. “You find their music in places outside the mainstream outlets, because when you’re independent, you don’t have the millions of dollars the major labels spend on their artists for advertising and PR to get the music played on big radio, in the chain music stores, on the Starbucks and Borders compilation CDs at the cash registers, placed in commercials, TV, movies, etc.”

Just because indie music isn’t as widely distributed doesn’t mean it’s less worthy of being heard, Champion said.

“In fact, in the industry today, there is far stronger music in the indie world than there is in the corporate major-label world – music that is far bolder, that pushes the envelope way beyond the monotonous and monopolized mainstream,” she explained. “Danielle and I just want to help give this music a bigger audience… a bigger stage. It’s a dream we both have had individually for years. It wasn’t until we met and started collaborating, that it became a goal, and now a reality.”

The criteria for selecting just a few of the many bands that populate the festival is as encouraging as it is heartbreaking – there seems to be more talent out there than a festival can accommodate.

“And, mind you, a great majority of those submissions were nothing short of excellent,” Champion said of their selection process. “We have an organized entertainment committee, comprised of musicians and producers in the community, who helped us listen to all the submissions as they came in. It’s a grueling process, without a doubt.”

This year, they received over 500 submissions, not just from American artists, but from all over the world, including: Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Iceland, China, India and Japan.

“That’s 460 bands to turn away!” LoPresti said. “More talent than we can describe… If funding wasn’t an issue, this festival would be 10 times the size, multiple days, multiple cities, compilation CDs made of all the artists’ music. We have so many ideas; the issue is they take money and major woman/manpower to execute, which are two things we’re still in short supply of.”

Something neither woman is in short supply of is the independent spirit that infuses both the festival and their respective record labels. LoPresti founded Say It Records in 2001 as a means of releasing her own material while retaining artistic control of the music and the message.

Champion started Champ Records when she was 17 years old, after she had been performing live in the San Francisco circuit for about two years. During that time, she said, she was being courted by a particular major label that tried to mold her into an “ideal” that she didn’t like so much. “They wanted me to change my sound, my look, and to compromise much more than I was comfortable with,” she said. “Using Ani Difranco [who started her own label, Righteous Babe Records, at age 19] as inspiration, I saved up my pennies on a small digital recording unit, recorded my own full-length CD, created a logo and a name, and poof! Champ Records was born.”

So what can music-loving audiences expect from this year’s sophomore effort? LoPresti paints this very detailed portrait of the experiences to be seen and heard: “The festival is created to be an inclusive, all ages, family-friendly event. We’re extremely proud to be one of the only truly integrated gay/straight events in San Diego. We think it’s so important for LGBT artists to be honored in mainstream events as well as our beloved Pride fests and so on. We think the amount of segregation still silently enforced isn’t in our best interests, and that, conversely, it is good for all of us to integrate and allow the music to bring us together.

“Art has been the great unifier throughout history, and it is no different today,” she continued. “The right music, dance and media may indeed be our greatest tool for seeing the change we so truly want. So many of our basic, yet now ignored rights in this country.”

For a complete rundown on tickets, performers and event vendors, log onto ww.sayitrecords.com/sdimf/sdimf.html for all the details you’ll need to enjoy the San Diego Indie Music Fest on Nov. 5, which runs from 12:00 noon until 12:00 midnight at the historic Abbey building and Kung Food restaurant on Fifth Avenue, between Olive and Quince streets. That’s 12 hours of good times just waiting to happen.