HeartSupport returns to Welcome to Rockville 2026, providing mental health support to hundreds of music fans
When bands like Guns N Roses, Foo Fighters, Bring Me The Horizon, and My Chemical Romance descended on Daytona Beach, FL along with 210,000 music fans, HeartSupport was there with them.
Welcome to Rockville is one of the leading rock and metal music festivals in the country, and it was the perfect host for music fans who needed a little extra support to find each other. Throughout the weekend, HeartSupport’s activation included free lyric tattoos, the chance to open up or offer support on the Support Wall, and hundreds of conversations about HeartSupport’s other peer-led mental health support offerings.
Max was one of the attendees who stopped by and opened up on the Support Wall.
“When I was younger, I was going through a lot, and I didn’t have resources like this. I didn’t have a lot of people to open up to,” Max explained afterwards. “It’s so important that I finally get to tell people about what’s going on, and people are just loving and welcoming. It’s a really big weight off my chest to talk to people — just anybody — about what’s going on. It actually made me a little more open-minded to what other people are going through. A lot of people are struggling and a lot of people are silent about it. But this gives them a chance to not only be anonymous if they don’t want to show their identity, but also visually see that people are there to support them.”
You can hear more from Max in the video below.
Max wasn’t the only one whose life was deeply impacted the support she received at Rockville. One fan, Korri, came back to the Wall after having experienced it for the first time last year.
“I had lost my father that raised me, and was just having some hard times,” Korri says of the first time he wrote on the Wall.
“Sometimes it’s easier to talk to everybody and nobody at the same time, a stranger that you’ll never see the face of, that’s a little easier,” Korri explains. “I’ve thought about the support and the people I spoke to every single day, for 365 days, since I came here the first time. I immediately came back on the first day when it opened.”
This year, he was reeling from yet another loss: the loss of his biological father. When he got to Rockville, he made a beeline for the Support Wall, knowing he could count on receiving care from other music fans. He was right: the Wall quickly filled with supportive words from other attendees who have also been through grief.
“Being there with mental health services, someone to open up to and talk to, not everyone has that,” Korri says. “I do have those things, but sometimes it’s hard to feel like you’re burdening the people around you. Sometimes, though, you just need someone to hear you. That’s the outcry.”
Max and Korri were two of 36 individual music fans who opened up over the course of the weekend. 175 people replied in support, and the HeartSupport team was able to have over 800 conversations with other festival attendees about ongoing programs like local Support Wall chapters and Support Calls. Many music fans even learned about the nearby HeartSupport chapter in Orlando, which will allow them to continue receiving a ripple effect of community and support.
The result was a real, tangible impact on the scene at Welcome to Rockville — a change that promises to last for fans year after year, just like it has for Korri.
HeartSupport’s presence at festivals like this can only happen because of people in the scene who know how powerful it is to offer help and healing with physical presence. Donate today to make sure HeartSupport can keep showing up at festivals all summer long!
