Area guitarists attended the NE Campus guitar festival Feb. 26 to show their skills and possibly earn some cash.

Sponsored by the NE Guitar Club, the festival offered competitions in divisions such as acoustic, singer/songwriter and under 12.

Singer/songwriter Sy Simons, 25, said he heard of the festival through a link on Facebook and jumped at the opportunity to share his talent.

“I’ve done a couple open-mic nights, but I thought it would help to go on my social media sites and put that I’ve done this or competed in this,” he said.

Simons, a Fort Worth native, graduated last year from Belmont University in Nashville, with a

music business degree and has been in the studio recording his own written songs, which he said are a mixture of country and pop genres about women.

“The whole process of songwriting, playing the guitar and singing is the fact that these are things that I would not ever tell a person, but I will sing about it,” Simons said. “Music is a channel for me to say what I want to say.”

Simons said he hopes to have a debut album out soon.

— Frankie Farrar-Helm