Palo Alto will be the host to two arts festivals this weekend, The Battle of the Bands and the Silver Screen Student Film and Performing Arts Festival.

Several Paly bands are preparing for the Battle of the Bands, scheduled for 4 p.m. Friday. A total of seven bands are scheduled to play until about 7 p.m..

Planned for Gunn high school’s Spangenburg Theater, the event will feature the Paly band Whiskey Hills Blues Band and Joy’s Panic. Halfway to Never was scheduled to perform as of press time. According to Paly junior and Halfway to Never guitarist Chris Richardson, the band may not be able to perform because Richardson is also acting in the Paly play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the timing will conflict.

The Paly bands will be joined by other local bands from Gunn, including Rest, Jim and Rob, Rocky and the Mountain Oysters, Welfare Jones, and Hotspur, according to the Gunn Student Activity Office.

"We’re hotter than ever," Wiskey Hills guitarist Giorgio Cafiero said. "Come for a good show."

Cafiero’s band will also be playing at the Paly-Gunn film festival.

The first of-its-kind student produced film festival, will be starting at 6:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at 6:30 in Cogswell Park (Lytton and Bryant intersection).

Silver Screen Student Film and Performing Arts Festival will kickoff with music from the Whiskey Hills Blues Band and many other upcoming student artists like Giorgio Cafiero, Adam Kurihara, Nathan Eberhart, Luke Li and Adam Carter. The screening of the films will begin when it gets dark, around 8:30 p.m.. Admission is free.

"It’s basically going to be a screening of student developed films," said junior Tony Vallone, one of the two students organizing the festival, "The idea is to bring together talented producers and musicians and exhibit their work. It’s going to be a great opportunity for students to come together and rally behind each other and show off their work."

Junior Brad Leong, another organizer, expects the atmosphere to be "fun and exciting." According to Vallone, The film festival will be a great place for Palo Alto teens to hang and enjoy great music and often hilarious films made by their peers. Vallone’s top three reasons to attend the film festival are "a time to hang out with your friends, listen to music and watch films produced by Paly and Gunn students."