Scads of Kansas University students will reject the sun and other outdoor distractions this weekend in favor of the library’s dim recesses. Finals week, after all, begins Monday. The time for Olympic-caliber cramming is here.

Local promoter Daniel Nokes, however, sympathizes with overwrought kids on the hill and has organized a concert event to counter any excessive studying that might go on.

“Studying is definitely important,” Nokes says, “but you gotta take a breather every now and then.”

It is in that spirit that Finals Week Fest, a music festival set for Saturday afternoon in Burcham Park, was conceived. Nokes says students should consider it a soundtrack for their study break needs.

“It will be a good chance to get out and relax,” the 21-year-old music aficionado says. “We’ll have stuff to eat from Food Not Banks and plenty of music.”

The festival bill includes 16 bands, 10 of which are from Lawrence or Kansas City. Touring acts from Wisconsin, Tennessee, Nebraska and Illinois also will rock the riverside park with punk-rock panache.

“The bands we have lined up lean more towards punk and hardcore, but there is some calmer stuff in there, too,” Nokes says.

Kelpie drummer John Momberg says his alternative rock quartet jumped at the chance to join the festival’s lineup.

“I think the concert is a great idea, especially since so many groups have signed on,” Momberg says. “We’ll add something different to the mix.”

Momberg says the Lawrence-based Kelpie will perform pop songs composed in the group’s signature avoidance of verse-chorus construction.

Kansas City musician Will Meek, otherwise known as the one-man band Thousandaire, will be making his first return to Lawrence since performing a year or so ago at a house party.

“I’m psyched because Lawrence is a great place to play,” says Meek, describing his sound as “Superchunk meets a crazy drum machine.”

Nokes, a native of Oklahoma City, says he spent considerable time organizing Finals Week Fest and credits his friends and Lawrencerock.com for their support.

“I’ve got some solid connections with bands, both in Lawrence and in other states,” he says. “But I couldn’t put stuff like this together without a lot of help.”

Nokes hopes to make concert promotion his full-time career; his shared Lawrence residence, known as “The Haunted Kitchen,” has served as a popular venue in the past.

“I just love music and bands and the whole culture,” says Nokes, who played as a teenager in a group called Shackles Await.

Nokes says he hopes to raise about $100 from Finals Week Fest ticket sales. All profits will help pay the touring bands’ travel expenses.

“I hope a lot of people get out to the festival,” Nokes says, adding that he chose Burcham Park, located northwest of downtown on the south side of the Kansas River, because “it is a little out of the way without being hidden.