It’s all about to happen in North Brooklyn, with the Northside Festival kicking off today. If you haven’t got your badge yet, get it; forget the pretense of all the cool kids (although the cool kids will be there), Northside is the place to be to see the best new music, work from the most innovative up-and-coming young filmmakers and interesting and informative talks from some seriously creative minds. Basically, it’s where you need to be if you care.

Over the course of the festival, innovation, entertainment and community spread throughout Greenpoint and Williamsburg for eight days. The festival features over 50 films, 350 bands and 120 speakers and lots of art. Not only is it great entertainment but it offers artists using various mediums a chance to expose their work to audiences, and an opportunity to see the talents and skills of fellow artists.

Now, unless you’re jobless or able to split your consciousness into several bodies or you have a Tardis, you’re probably not going to be able to catch everything at the festival, which, in our opinion, is a damn shame. We’ve taken the liberty of picking out some of our “must see” bands, films and speakers, to hopefully take some of the stress out of your decision making process…