Twenty years into the FloydFest, Sam Calhoun and his team have gotten festival production down to a science. But they know art plays an invaluable role. After all, curating music, arts, and culinary creations – even the camping experience – for one of the most respected music festivals along the East Coast leaves nothing to chance.
Musically, FloydFest – named for the Virginia county that’s played host for two decades – has announced String Cheese Incident, Grace Potter, Turkuaz and Adrian Belew, Toots and the Maytals, Leftover Salmon, Brent Cobb and Andy Frasco and the US. That’s just the first waves of acts. More drops are slated into the New Year.
Coming off a sold-out 2019 event, COO Sam Calhoun is committed to elevating the program in every possible way.
Their calling card all along has been ramping up the music curation, the art installations, and the craft libations to take this far beyond just a new theme that’ll carry FloydFest into its third decade.
“We’re looking at 20 years old, and that’s very special,” Calhoun said. “‘Vision Quest speaks to what we’ve created.’”
Community has long played a role in FloydFest. Those who go know families with kids also enjoy a welcoming, family fun environment. The Children’s Universe will make sure the kinder have as much fun as the elders. More on that below.
So if you expect to find yourself at or passing milepost 170.5 on the Blue Ridge Parkway the weekend of July 22, 2020, there’s no place you’re headed that will out-do where you’re at. Stop by, drop in, tune in and enjoy one of the region’s – and nation’s – remarkable festivals.
RTM: What’s been the driver for your success?
Sam Calhoun: I think, above all, it’s the people, our patrons that support us. We always say it’s the patrons, this is their festival. We care very deeply about patron surveys. So we encourage all of our patrons to fill those out. At the end of the season, we look at the feedback and we try to improve that. Of course, we have a new theme every year to get behind or re-energize. We’re not just the same name every single year so we get away that risk of being mundane. And then of course, you know, our talent buying team has been there since the very beginning and they work very hard at that purposeful programming to create the backbone of the festival – outdoor adventure, craft libation, and live music. Beyond the music, we have the camping and outdoors activities and have plenty of craft breweries and cider and wine coming from the local area. So those pieced together have allowed us to continue to truly put something special together for the patrons. We want to make them happy – to produce the sanctuary that they’ve come to respect and trust.
RTM: Talk about the art installations and they role they play?
Sam Calhoun: We want to continually surprise people. We understand that we need to give you some mind candy to allow people to kind of state their day to day with some of the installations that we’ve been on site. It becomes just part of the entire experience. What we say is that it’s purposeful programming over the five days. This production team, Kris and the talent buying, they work very hard to put the different pieces of the puzzle in so that everything makes sense from our Wednesday to our Sunday. It’s a mantra in our company. It’s not who you bring. It’s how you bring them. So we want to purposefully place these acts, this art, in different locations at different times across festival, so that makes sense across the entire show. And we encourage people of course to camp the entire five days. We want them to be a part of the entire experience and not have to miss a minute by going off site. So that way we’re proud to say that after all these years, a majority of our patrons do camp for the majority of the time. And we see very brisk sales right off the bat of five day tickets. I think that’s because people are really bought into the entire experience.
RTM: Anything different with camping this year, where new areas or art and installations infused into the camping experience?
Calhoun: Each of our campgrounds has its own individual art installations. People are going to be able to see different different art scapes wherever they’re staying. We feel like we kind of nailed down what patrons really wanted in the last couple of years in terms of camping. Onsite RVs is really popular. We brought those back a couple of years ago and now they’re back again this year. Premium Woodsy is our most flat, shaded area, and that sold out really quickly, along with our onsite RV. But as you mentioned, one of the gems is Delta Lot. It’s a festival within the festival and it’s a short, 10-minute shuttle drive on a 24-hour shuttle so you can get back and forth easily. Delta Lot is just so cool. It has a general store, food trucks. It’s got the flat area for the RVs and parking campers on the wood line. It’s so beautiful.
And then, of course onsite, our GA tenting horseshoes the entire festival. And if people just go down in the woods there, they’re gonna find some really cool shires that they can kind of make the own. And you’re still only steps away from the stages. We have nine stages. There’s not a bad site in the area. We’re in the hills and mountains of the Appalachians, so there is some slant to some of the camping areas. But people make the most of that. You can always put your head up hill.”
If camping and music festivals is a family experience in your household, check back for the next blog where Sam discusses the community FloydFest has built among its fans, staff, even the musicians.