A free festival for punks of all ages, Chroma63 returns to Waterloo with a local lineup, pop-up skate park and 40 years of Iowa show flyers on display

On the website for the Waterloo Center for the Arts, you’ll find a list of perennial outdoor festivals hosted in the museum’s RiverLoop Amphitheatre. You may notice one of the events is not like the others. Nestled amongst the likes of Cedar Valley Stem & Stein and the Holiday Arts Festival is the Chroma63 Arts and Music Festival, which debuted on June 14, 2025. 

That day saw the amphitheatre amped up a notch for a lineup of Iowa punk, metal and hardcore bands, playing for a free audience. There was also 35 artist vendors and an entire section dedicated to skateboarding, complete with an official Best Trick contest. It was a Waterloo affair that, frankly, seemed to come out of nowhere — but as usually is the case, Chroma63 was the result of years of work from Waterloo Center for Arts (WCA) and key partners in the Cedar Valley area. 

With its follow-up iteration set for Saturday, June 13, Little Village talked with some of the team behind the fest, each with their own punk origins. 

Musician, journalist and music historian Matthew Hundley is the creative lead behind “40 Years of Punk,” a curation and pop-up installation featuring four decades worth of Iowa-based music flyers, posters and ephemera, which will be exhibited at Chroma. He grew up in Cedar Falls, and played in a local punk band in the ’80s when one of the genre’s top acts swung through the area.

“1986 was the year that Black Flag came and played Cedar Falls. So it was a pivotal moment,” he told Little Village. “But it wasn’t just Black Flag. That year we had BGK from the Netherlands come and play UNI, along with another band from Germany. They were in, like, one of the dorm ballrooms. Social Unrest, who were on the same label as Dead Kennedys, came through.”

Hundley, with his encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the Cedar Falls and Waterloo alternative music scene, seemed destined to connect with Chroma63. This year’s fest will feature a “40 Years of Punk” exhibition. Amanda Simmons, director of marketing and development at the WCA, said the first Chroma63 was a raging success.

“We saw over 2,500 visitors of all ages in attendance,” Simmons said. “It was a really big eye-opener how many people really wanted to see something new like Chroma. Everyone from the attendees to vendors and bands all had a great time and were very eager to come back.” 

Simmons had envisioned something like Chroma63 since she started at WCA in 2019. “I felt that we had the potential to create something very unique that focused on some of the more hidden crevices within the local arts community.” 

She began working with local promoters to host a series of metal, hardcore, punk and rock shows at the WCA. A few years later, Simmons “found those shows to be packed with passionate local arts supporters and a full community of likeminded individuals not only interested in music but in visual arts, film and other avenues.”

Simmons relayed this to WCA Director Chawne Paige, who saw the same potential in a larger festival that supported these alternative arts communities  It also helped that Paige had a history of embracing alt-music scenes himself, according to Hundley. 

“Twenty years ago, [Paige] had a program called Loud, where he was trying to bring punk, rap, metal people together to do things. And I like that spirit.” 

“The ethos is kind of punk and a little bit rebellious,” Hundley continued. That same mindset underlies Chroma63. “The bands that they have are not playing the county fair. They’re not [covering] Boston and Peter Frampton. They’re writing their own music, which already goes against the grain.” 

Hundley praised the visual art components of the fest as well. “What’s cool to me is to see artists that are in their 20s and 30s exhibiting their work and selling their work, not artists that are my age or my parents’ age, you know, in their 50s to 70s. It’s allowing a new generation to step up and use creativity as a means of getting their message out.”

Another aspect of the fest attracts a multi-generational crowd: skateboarding. Last year organizers partnered with the CedarLoo Skateboard Association to designate a section of the RiverLoop Amphitheatre and Expo Park for a free skate and trick competition.

“It was great to see older punks and metal fans with their kids and others coming out to enjoy the day and being unapologetically themselves while enjoying the music, art and skating,” Simmons said. “I saw members of the bands going to skate in between sets and kids trying to skate for the first time.”

When asked about the inclusion of skateboarding, Simmons joked that it may have come about because, like a lot of ’90s kids, her first time hearing many punk bands was while playing  games in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series. 

“Punk music played a huge role in shaping skate culture,” she added. “The fast tempos and DIY attitude of punk matched the energy and independence of skating, especially in its early days when it existed outside the mainstream. Together, the two cultures grew side by side, sharing a spirit of anti-authority, self-expression and constant innovation. To me, they go hand-in-hand.” 

The skate space returns for this year’s fest, with the addition of roller derby tracks and an appearance by members of the Cedar Valley Roller Derby League. 

The second annual Chroma63 is poised to be bigger in almost every regard, but the organizers remain focused on local, grassroots punk. The headlining band is Waterloo’s very own kick-ass punk group the Rumours. The rest of the 2026 lineup — from Des Moines’ Greg Wheeler & the Poly Mall Cops and Mr. Softheart to the Quad Cities’ Skip Greer-fronted Running Man — would be spot-on answers to the question, “Who are the artists making the most noise across Iowa today?”

The sound of the mainstage is likely to reverberate through the distinguished Waterloo Center for the Arts. Simmons said the WCA team wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Our committee is comprised of avid music enthusiasts, punk magazine authors, musicians, artists, skaters and everyone in between,” she said. Additional input and representation came from local venue The Loft, the music production co-op DCK Unlimited Productions, production company Solid Light and Sound, and IPR Studio One.

“Each person shares a wild passion for art and that’s what really fueled the creation of Chroma.”  

Upcoming event:

Chroma63, RiverLoop Amphitheatre, Waterloo, Saturday, June 13, 12-9 p.m., Free

Related article:

Legendary pro skater, punk rocker and Des Moines local Mike Vallely is living his teenage dream

This article was originally published in Little Village’s June 2026 issue.