UtopiaFest, Utopia, Texas.
The view of Chicago’s skyline during Lollapalooza is spectacular. And there’s nothing quite like the drive into the lush polo fields of Coachella to warm any festival-lover’s heart.
But chances are if you’re at either one of those fests you’re there to see the music (and be seen) and, if you’re lucky, you might have time to crawl out of your hotel room (or tent) and do a little sightseeing before the music starts.
What if the festival was the destination? If seeing great bands was just as important as being in a great place where the vibe was as attractive as the lineup? As the list of domestic festivals continues to explode, a growing breed of “lifestyle” gatherings has taken hold in which the traditional idea of big stages in a big city is being supplanted by something entirely different.
TAKE YOUR PICK(ATHON)
“We have a mixture of several elements that we explore that most festivals don’t really curate in that way but use a much more generic model,” said Zale Schoenborn of Oregon’s quirky 17-year-old Pickathon Festival. The zero-waste gathering on an 80-acre farm in Happy Valley draws a modest 3,500 attendees each year.
While Schoenborn places a premium on great music — booking such hot acts as Shakey Graves and Mac DeMarco before they get national exposure — he jokes that even the most educated music fan likely knows only one-quarter of the acts on any year’s bill.
With a month to work on the site and one-fifth the density of other major festivals based on patrons-per-acre, Schoenborn said Pickathon creates a high level of comfort. Pickathon boasts 3.5 patrons to every 2.5 paid/unpaid/volunteer/vendors, a number he said is drastically different from Lollapalooza, which has 10 (or 20) patrons per staffer/volunteer.
Positioned at what he described as “the nexus of music, art, sustainability, design, food/drink, community and media,” Pickathon also looks unlike any other fest.
Patrons carry around their own reusable cups and flatware and there are no traditional truss stages. The main one takes a month to build and is the largest temporary fabric stage around at 200,000 square feet of fabric held together by 10 miles of rope line. “We create a custom environment and the impact on the audience is like a musical alternate reality ride.”
There’s a solar-powered Woods Stage that is, yes, in the middle of the woods, as well as the “intimate and intense” 300-capacity Galaxy Barn, which feels rustic but has the most sophisticated lights and sound possible. The fest also has a 300-person broadcast team that collects broadcast-quality video in 2K and 4K for later use and 12 independent film teams that shoot private sessions that are shown between sets.
“You add in sustainability and it’s a crazy stew, but those are not the things you come for,” he said. “It’s the overall impact of having no trash, which is a totally awesome draw, but that’s also not enough to make a music festival successful. It’s not enough to do beautiful stages and remove all the hassles of a festival.”
This year also brought a special brunch ticket pairing 38 fans with a famous chef and the band, the Heartless Bastards, who played 10-minute sets between courses. Oh, and the filming of an entire “Portlandia” episode on site during the fest.
PEMBERTON IS AN ADVENTURE
Another festival heavily invested in making the experience king was this year’s Pemberton Festival in British Columbia. The four-day gathering is part of the growing portfolio of New Orleans-based HUKA Entertainment (Rock The Ocean’s Tortuga Music Festival, Hangout Music Festival), which chairman and CEO A.J. Niland said is firmly focused on destination and experience.
“Our thought process is if we can pull together an experience and a lineup in a location where people would go on vacation regardless of the music, we’re creating an experience beyond music,” he said of the event that boasted 113 acts, including Kendrick Lamar, Black Keys and J. Cole.
Pemberton is held at the foot of the majestic Mt. Currie, just 15 minutes from the resort town of Whistler. It offers a variety of options besides music, from mountain biking to ziplines, whitewater rafting and hiking, as well as everything from traditional camping to glamping (with tent setup and linens provided) and spots at the nearby Four Seasons with available shuttle service to and from the site.
On site there is a zipline, a waterpark-grade waterslide, yoga classes, Saturday morning cartoons every morning in a tent, art and sculptures throughout the site and a craft beer garden.
This year’s show — which drew more than 115,000 over the July 16-19 weekend — added an amenity no other festival can brag of: a five-star, VIP service that Niland said was the equivalent of a stadium suite. With a fully stocked, private, elevated structure overlooking the 3 main stages along with high-end food, the package (available to an invite-only test audience in year one) also included helicopter transport to and from guests’ airports and hotels and helicopter excursions throughout the day.
“We invited a group of Olympians, celebrities and models on adventures like flying to a glacier, a hot spring and to Jet Ski ... it’s something nobody is really doing and it’s just extreme,” he said. In future years he expects to open it to the public after picking up the tab this year while working out the kinks.
FROM FAMILY FARM TO FESTIVAL FUN
Much smaller, but no less unique, UtopiaFest VIII will set up shop in a natural amphitheater on the 1,000-acre Four Sisters Ranch in Utopia, Texas, Sept. 4-6. With only two stages and 2,000 tickets available, the event is BYOB and features free parking, camping, water and activities, including disc golf, yoga, silent disco and kids workshops.
“The whole thing starts with the location, which is a ranch that’s been in my family for five generations,” said ‘chief experiential architect’ Travis Sutherland. “It’s in the middle of this breathtakingly beautiful part of the hill country in Texas, there’s no sign of civilization, no fences, very little infrastructure and an amazingly positive, radiant energy you feel when you’re out there.”
As usual, hassle-free tent rentals are also available, with prices ranging from $250 for an extra large tent with two cots and linens for two nights, to $550 for three nights with an extra large tent and four cots. This year’s line-up includes 30 bands such as Father John Misty, Dawes, Galactic and Dr. Dog, with no overlap between sets and some special late-night, acoustic gigs as well.
Interviewed for this story: A.J. Niland, (818) 763-9800; Zale Schoenborn, info@pickathon.com; Travis Sutherland, (512) 496-2798