FemFest kicked off the start of “spooky season” this Saturday with its first festival of the year, Harvest Moon. The show featured bands with female lead vocalists, highlighting Thornton students Ayla Claire and Sophia Condon, as well as the band Small Talk fronted by Sammi Wallace.

FemFest is a student-run club focusing on promoting femme and nonbinary musicians. They operate through the Student Assembly for Gender Empowerment. Fiona Church, assistant director for the club and a junior majoring in music industry, said she uses the expertise she has gained from her Thornton education to help plan exciting, student-oriented events.

“We are mostly music industry students who love throwing festivals and also empowering women,” Church said. “The pop music program aligns a lot with the music industry [program], and they’re just wonderful performers and musicians and students, and we love showcasing their music. We love giving them a place to perform and a place where students can come and listen to some super cool music.”

The festival began with a performance from Claire, a sophomore majoring in popular music performance, who kicked off the show with a cover of “Sex on Fire” by Kings of Leon, followed by “Just a Girl” by No Doubt alongside a handful of originals and other covers.

Junior popular music major Sophia Condon followed Claire, playing her first house show of the year. During her set, Condon played several originals, including “Intro,” “Grace” and “Ladybug.” She described her songwriting process as drawing from imagining what might be enjoyable to sing.

“A lot of my music I make with the idea that I would get to perform it for people, not just a recorded version of it,” Condon said. “It’s a lot of influence from rock, I’d say, also R&B, soulful, a little bit of pop.”

Condon said “anything” could inspire her songwriting process, drawing from her own experiences as well as stories told in media.

“Sometimes I’ll just be journaling, and something will come up, and I’ll look at that and be like, ‘that looks like something I might want to expand on,’” Condon said. “A lot of times I’ll write with other people, which I think is the most inspiring for me because I like to be in the collaborative space to make songs. A lot of times I’ll just sit down and be like, ‘what is coming to the mind right now?’”

Small Talk was the final performance of the night. The band was founded by six Thornton students in their freshman year at USC; in the year since, they have been performing consistently and have recorded two original songs. Starting their set with a cover of “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga and ending with Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club,” the band put a rock twist on the female powerhouses of pop while inserting their originals between.

Gabriel ‘Gabi’ Fues, a sophomore majoring in popular music and music production, is the bassist for Small Talk and also played with Condon for her set. He emphasized the unique feel of playing a house show like Harvest Moon.

“It’s a different vibe because you can just really kind of experiment. It’s very free,” Fues said. “There’s a lot of pressure off of it, and so that kind of brings out the best playing. I can just kind of do what I want and experiment and try what I think is gonna be best, versus just being scared on stage. All of your friends are in the crowd, and it’s just a bunch of people who just want to hear some music on a Saturday night.”

Church said FemFest was excited to hold the show and reach students who have not heard about the organization before.

“There are many groups around USC that throw awesome house shows, but we just love supporting our student artists. All of these kids are students at USC,” Church said. “All the bands here are amazing — but there are some bands here that have actual fans. People love to come see them, and so it’s really awesome to see our student artists grow like that.”