After closing down and cleaning up after their inaugural Ska-Mic Con last year, Orange County couple and diehard ska music fans Whitney Dunkle, 26, and Cameron Hallenbeck, 27, tiredly joked about who would headline the following year.

“It was so much work,” Dunkle said. That first event featured six bands, including O.C.-based ska-rock headliner CodeName:Rocky, at Out of the Park Pizza in Anaheim. “I turned to Cameron and I said, ‘OK, so next year, we’re booking Reel Big Fish, right?’”

He laughed in her face.

“It just sounded too ridiculous to be true,” Hallenbeck said.

Whitney Dunkle and Cameron Hallenbeck love ska music. The Orange County-based couple got together a small, six band event last year that they dubbed Ska-mic Con at Out of the Park Pizza. This year, the event has grown to a two-day festival with over 20 acts performing including headliners Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake. The event grew out of their mutual love for ska and strong connection with the ska community. The festival is also small capacity, with about a 1,200 limit capacity per day. The event will also feature Suburban Legends, the Maxies, Codename: Rocky, the Ziggens and more on Friday, July 21 and Saturday, July 22. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

Orange County’s own Reel Big Fish will headline day one of the two-day Ska-Mic Con at Out of the Park Pizza in Anaheim on Friday, July 21. (Photo by Jonathan Thorpe)

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Whitney Dunkle and Cameron Hallenbeck love ska music. The Orange County-based couple got together a small, six band event last year that they dubbed Ska-mic Con at Out of the Park Pizza. This year, the event has grown to a two-day festival with over 20 acts performing including headliners Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake. The event grew out of their mutual love for ska and strong connection with the ska community. The festival is also small capacity, with about a 1,200 limit capacity per day. The event will also feature Suburban Legends, the Maxies, Codename: Rocky, the Ziggens and more on Friday, July 21 and Saturday, July 22. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

Whitney Dunkle and Cameron Hallenbeck love ska music. The Orange County-based couple got together a small, six band event last year that they dubbed Ska-mic Con at Out of the Park Pizza. This year, the event has grown to a two-day festival with over 20 acts performing including headliners Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake. The event grew out of their mutual love for ska and strong connection with the ska community. The festival is also small capacity, with about a 1,200 limit capacity per day. The event will also feature Suburban Legends, the Maxies, Codename: Rocky, the Ziggens and more on Friday, July 21 and Saturday, July 22. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

Whitney Dunkle and Cameron Hallenbeck love ska music. The Orange County-based couple got together a small, six band event last year that they dubbed Ska-mic Con at Out of the Park Pizza. This year, the event has grown to a two-day festival with over 20 acts performing including headliners Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake. The event grew out of their mutual love for ska and strong connection with the ska community. The festival is also small capacity, with about a 1,300 limit capacity per day. The event will also feature Suburban Legends, the Maxies, CodeName: Rocky, the Ziggens and more on Friday, July 21 and Saturday, July 22. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)



Whitney Dunkle and Cameron Hallenbeck love ska music. The Orange County-based couple got together a small, six band event last year that they dubbed Ska-mic Con at Out of the Park Pizza. This year, the event has grown to a two-day festival with over 20 acts performing including headliners Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake. The event grew out of their mutual love for ska and strong connection with the ska community. The festival is also small capacity, with about a 1,200 limit capacity per day. The event will also feature Suburban Legends, the Maxies, Codename: Rocky, the Ziggens and more on Friday, July 21 and Saturday, July 22. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

The second annual Ska-Mic Con, which got its moniker by taking place around the same time as the annual Comic-Con in San Diego, has been an even more massive undertaking, Dunkle admits, but they’ve gone all out.

Initially she thought it was an elaborate April Fool’s Day joke when Hallenbeck told her that local Third Wave Ska idols Reel Big Fish had officially signed on as a headliner for Ska-Mic Con back in late March. However, she was relieved to find out it wasn’t. Through word-of-mouth and their diligent work within the Southern California ska community, Dunkle and Hallenbeck shot for the moon with the 2017 line-up and expanded the event to two days with more than 25 bands performing.

Ska-Mic Con will once again be held at Out of the Park Pizza, however this time outside in the large lot located just to the right of the venue. A large stage will be graced by Reel Big Fish, Suburban Legends, the Maxies, CodeName: Rocky, Matamoska, Kill Lincoln, Be Like Max, Fairhaven and Light Em Up on Friday, July 21. Less Than Jake will lead the charge on Saturday, July 22, along with support from Phenomenauts, GoGo13, The Ziggens, Jelly of the Month Club, Wank, For the Record, the Moan and more.

“There’s so much disbelief from people, but the main question is, ‘Where are you going to fit them all’,” Hallenbeck said since the crowd capacity cap is about 1,000 out in the lot and around 300 for VIP inside the pizzeria. They’ve also scheduled strict 20-30 minute sets for early acts and 40-50 minute sets for the later performers in an effort to keep each day flowing smoothly.

Dunkle and Hallenbeck, who have known each other for over a decade, both attended Canyon High School in Anaheim and grew up on Orange County ska bands such as Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris and the Aquabats. Hallenbeck formerly played in the ska-punk band the Pocketeers and is a current member of Half Past Two.

They’ve been instrumental in helping to book smaller ska shows around Orange County and in 2015 started Pocket Entertainment to book mostly free all-ages shows at Out of the Park Pizza, a restaurant owned by Dan Smith, a former musician himself. Recently they’ve expanded into booking genres like indie rock, soul and rockabilly. They’ve also hosted ska-themed events like the annual Skacaemy Awards, a cheeky ceremony honoring the best of the best in ska music, and the Skalloween Ska-mbie Prom. They always ask patrons to come in costume for these events and Ska-Mic Con is no exception.

“We’ve seen some really great costumes,” Dunkle said. “There are a lot of checkers, a lot of Hawaiian shirts and people dressing up like Aaron Barrett (of Reel Big Fish) or Aquabat cadet outfits. Keith (Roberts) from Hooray for Our Side dressed up like Skankenstein. That was probably one of my favorites.”

Since Reel Big Fish is pretty much now synonymous with beer thanks to their fan-favorite hit, appropriately just titled “Beer,” Pocket Entertainment also partnered with Ska Brewing, Tustin Brewing Company and Stereo Brewing to bring in some specialty brews, which will be available for purchase. Reel Big Fish has had a history with the Colorado based-Ska Brewing Company and even made a limited run of its own Russian Imperial Stout with the company a few years back.

Reel Big Fish has been away from home this summer, traveling the country on its Beer Run Tour which, on certain stops, it has paired with a nearby brewery to bring tastings and more to the shows.

“That has been really fun,” saxophone player Matt “Saxl Rose” Appleton said during a recent phone chat. “I enjoyed being in Westerly, Rhode Island, and having Two Roads Brewing out. I’m a big fan of theirs. We played at Bell’s Brewery out in Kalamazoo, Michigan and we just played Niagara Falls, New York and Magic Hat Brewing Company sponsored the show.”

Free beer is certainly a nice perk of the job, Appleton said.

“Yeah, we don’t get healthcare but we get free beer, which cures all the internal and emotional wounds,” he said with a laugh.

He said that he and the rest of the band are excited to be part of Ska-Mic Con since it’s really an event by ska fans for ska fans.

“A lot of the festivals we play, we’ll be the only ska band,” he said. “I feel like for people who are really into our genre, it will be fun to get into a more intimate and exclusive kind of festival. That way you’re not suffering through a crowd, waiting to hear the music you want to hear. I appreciate the smaller type shows, they are more fun. You kinda just cram everyone in and they can see everything and we can see them, too. It’s a more personal experience and we’re looking forward to just playing with the Maxies, Suburban Legends and Less Than Jake … plus it’s at a pizza place and pizza and beer is my steady diet.”

Appleton said he’s also looking forward to tasting some new brews at Ska-Mic Con. Right now he’s a fan of a few new beers from Cigar Brewing in Tampa, Florida and the Betty IPA from Hangar 24 in Redlands. His very first beer was a Budweiser that his dad let him try and he thought it was “the worst thing ever,” though he can appreciate one now on a hot summer day. He grew up in Vermont and was introduced to craft beer via Magic Hat Brewing Company’s popular beer, #9. As much as he loves it, he said that it’s a bit of a rookie move to drink beer (or too much beer) before a performance.

“I try not to have beers before the show,” he said. “It’s tough when you really don’t have responsibilities, like not having to drive and stuff, and it’s easy to drink a lot of beer, but you can end up fat and with a headache. I wouldn’t say everyone is good at pacing themselves, but we’ve got to be careful around show time because we move around a lot. If you have too many beers you’re going to barf or it just jiggles around in your tummy and that’s a terrible feeling.”

Though they have a mountain of work ahead of them in putting on the expanded second edition of Ska-Mic Con, Dunkle and Hallenbeck remain positive about having the event grow in the future and possibly even become something they can take to a few locations across the country.

“We’ve discussed quite a few possibilities including turning it into a national tour,” Dunkle said. “But we want to be realistic. The response has been great. We’ve had people from all over email and say they’re going to fly in for this or that they’ll bring their kids because they grew up with ska music and want to share it with them. We had a guy from Russia who messaged us and said ‘I’m really sad this isn’t happening in Russia.’ Who knows, maybe next year?”

Ska-Mic Con 2017

With: Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, The Ziggens, Suburban Legends, The Maxies, GoGo13, CodeName:Rocky and more.

When: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday, July 21 and Saturday, July 22

Where: Out of the Park Pizza, 5638 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim

Tickets: $40 single-day general admission ticket; $65 two-day general admission ticket; $80 single-day VIP admission available at skamiccon.com. Prices increase by $5 day-of-show at the door.