Brandon McCadney looked tired, but he couldn't wipe the grin off his face at the mention of the "All Things Art Festival" put together by his company, Hearts and Beats.

It was understandable -- he's been waiting two years.

It started all the way back in 2013. McCadney said the idea was thrown out while talking with friend Bartholomew Pittman.

"We were talking like, 'Man, how can we combine the entire essence of Hearts and Beats into one day?'" McCadney said. "We were like, 'Let's have a festival,' like 'Why not do a festival?'"

He wrote down idea after idea, wanting to put something together from the get-go. He acknowledged Pittman as responsible for the event title "All Things Art." He instantly liked the sound of it.

Despite his drive for the project, McCadney admitted that he quickly realized there was more to hosting an event than he had initially thought.

"I just spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people," McCadney said. "Sometimes meetings ran from, 'Here, I got a guy you get to email,' 'Here, email her, call her,' 'Text this person, have coffee with them,' this and that. I'm like, 'All right, OK, I'll do it -- whatever I gotta do to get this thing to work.' But it just kind of shows that it takes this long, I didn't realize it'd take this long to plan one day for several events to happen so syncly."

McCadney mentioned the idea first to his employers at Cup 'n Cork, and he said owners Patrick and Tina Abbott were the ones who directed him to initial networking connections. The idea never really did go away, it remained pen and paper, but McCadney had set it on the back burner while juggling both work and school.

When he revisited the idea again in September or October of 2014, he spoke to managers at his internship with rustmedia for further guidance. That led to meeting with his business professor at Southeast Missouri State University, James Stapleton, as well as other business-minded men and women around the Cape Girardeau area. McCadney lived in his email, went to meeting after meeting after meeting, but as the festival date grows closer, he said he would do the same all over again.

The "All Things Art Festival" will be held from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. April 18 across downtown Cape Girardeau.

"It just kind of blossomed, the wheels started to turn," McCadney said. "With Hearts and Beats having our last summer showcase in St. Louis this past summer, I wanted to initiate something new and to bring up something that will kind of give Hearts and Beats -- that'll move us forward in a sense."

The "All Things Art Festival" isn't necessarily a foreign concept for Hearts and Beats. McCadney said they've held art showcases in St. Louis every summer since 2012, but they're hosting on a much larger scale in Cape Girardeau. The summer showcases are organized in one gallery space instead of spanned across the city.

The festival starts at Codefi, a local coworking space and startup of Stapleton's. From 10 a.m. to noon entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to present their business, pitch new ideas and follow up by networking with others in attendance. Volunteers will be at the event as well to later lead attendees to successive events downtown. Downtown involvement is ultimately left up to the visitor, though.

"Our visitors are going to walk the streets of Cape and then the businesses that we're working with will have their doors open and will engage with the festival with some kind of artistic activity that they may have on the sidewalks," McCadney said.

McCadney said a competition is up for grabs here, too. The first 10 people to take and post selfies with local business owners to their Instagram account and hashtag the festival and Hearts and Beats will receive a free T-shirt once they reach Cup 'n Cork.

At Cup 'n Cork from 1-3 p.m. all showcasing artists will have their work set up for display out in the courtyard.

"Visitors will come into Cup 'n Cork and they can order a coffee and just hang out and experience the artwork and everything that'll be on the walls, experience Cup 'n Cork if they've never been in there before," McCadney said.

Four to 6 p.m. will be reminiscent of a typical Thursday open mic night at Cup 'n Cork.

"Artists, musicians can just come up and do what they do best," McCadney said.

According to McCadney, "special performances" from 7-9 p.m. will end the night. McCadney will perform under his solo Mad Keys project along with St. Louis-based singers.

McCadney said he'd already looked at the forecast and there was promise it'd stay dry. But if there is rain, he's got a plan for that, too.

"I said, 'The first thing you gotta come up with is a rain plan,'" Patrick Abbott said. "If you're talking to the city or county or anybody they're going to say, 'What's your plan if it rains?'"

Regardless of weather, McCadney's pulling off what he's waited years to do. He remembered coming as a freshman to Southeast and, as a St. Louis native, not realizing that passing through Main Street meant passing through the heart of downtown. He was compelled to create a connection between the student body and the city community. He found it in art.

"It's just like an art gallery," McCadney said. "We want you to come and see what it is that people around you are doing. We want you to come and be inspired. We want you to potentially be inspired and to do something, too. Whether it is, 'I'm going to pick my guitar back up. I haven't played in 10 years,' or 'I want to start painting again,' or 'Maybe I should revisit my business plans back from way back when. Let's see if I can start something up again.' That's kind of what we want. The whole premise of Hearts and Beats is that essence of bringing everything together and making everything integrated and making everybody feel like they're a part of this."

In terms of another festival, McCadney is on board with the consideration. He'd like to see it broaden further than Cape Girardeau, hosted within different cities. But he's focused on the finishing touches for this project at the moment and on April 19 he's looking forward to finally getting some sleep.

"I think it's real important to have a place where people can do this kind of expression and creativity," Patrick Abbott said.