Published October 22, 2026 at 4:32 PM PDT
People who go to games or concerts in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood can expect to be hit by a wall of sound: from fans, cars, food vendors. Often cutting through all of that is the booming voice of a street preacher, or preachers.
Amplified by megaphones, they spend hours spreading their religious messages. Recently, however, a street preacher had an unexpected guest sharing their own sermon of sorts: a bass drummer.
The drummer followed the street preacher around for more than an hour. Clips of it were shared on Reddit by the person who hired the one-man band.
"When I first did this, it was kind of like a one-off idea of like, 'Oh man, what if someone just goes and drowns out his noise?'" the Redditor, who requested to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, told KUOW.
The online response has been overwhelming. Nearly 2,000 comments have been shared on the post with a wide-range of opinions about the situation.
"I didn't know that it was going to gain some traction and start breaching the front page of Reddit,” he said. “Once it spread outside of the Seattle subreddit, then I started getting a lot more negative comments."
The Redditor also put an online call out to others who want to chip in to pay the drummer and/or other musicians.
History of the street preachers
Street preachers have been a longtime fixture outside of Seattle’s sports stadiums. A trio of them were giddy after a night of evangelizing in 2025 as they spoke with KUOW.
RELATED: Seattle street preachers say nothing can silence their amplified message
“We don’t know what the concert was, doesn’t matter. We stumble into stuff,” Ron Cardiel said at the time. “We see people standing in a line and we share the gospel with them. We invade them.”
Cardiel said for the past 13 years, he’s preached at well over half of the Mariners' home games. Efforts to put an end to what Cardiel and his proselytizing associates do aren’t straightforward.
KING 5 reported last year Seattle’s noise control code establishes maximum permissible sound levels, capping commercial zones like T-Mobile Park at 60 decibels during the day. A man who spoke at a September 2025 Seattle City Council meeting said he measured the sound of the street preachers.
“They were all over 110 decibels and one was broadcasting at 121.7 decibels,” he said. Cardiel disputed this claim and said different meters will provide different measurements.
The Seattle Police Department told KING 5 it’s not the enforcing agency for those specific noise limits, adding it cannot restrict free speech due to volume. The police department pointed toward the Washington Department of Ecology and Public Health - Seattle & King County. The Department of Ecology said local governments hold the responsibility for setting and enforcing noise limits based on land use; Public Health said it has no role in enforcing noise ordinances.
In an effort to understand the impact of noise generated near the stadium, T-Mobile Park sent out a fan survey last fall with the following questions.
- Did you experience amplified noise outside T-Mobile Park today? If so, what was the source of the noise and how did it affect your experience?
- If you’ve previously visited T-Mobile Park, did you have a similar experience with amplified noise? If so, how would you describe your previous experience?
- Have any visits to T-Mobile Park that included exposure to amplified noise affected your sense of personal safety, well-being or your willingness to visit the ballpark again?
KUOW asked T-Mobile Park and The Mariners about the results and what they plan to do with them. Neither responded by the time of publication.
The beat goes on
The anonymous Reddit poster reaffirmed his crowdfunding plans to KUOW. Several people said they were willing to pitch in to continue having a musician walk alongside the street preachers.
"I want to be as transparent as possible. I don't want people to feel like I'm just taking their money and they don't know where it's going and I'm scamming them,” he said.
He also told KUOW he doesn’t want this to turn into something physical.
"I am firmly against any sort of violence or damaging [the street preachers’] equipment," he said. "That's not what this is about. They’re exercising their free speech and we’re exercising ours by having musicians out there.”
Have a story idea or want to make a comment about the one you just read? Reach out to Cornelius Hocker at cornelius@kuow.org or on social media. @corneliushocker.