We make no secret at RoadtripMojo that our first love is jam bands. We’ll travel almost a thousand miles – and fly even farther – to see bands that turn a three-minute song into a 15-minute improvisational frenzy. But when an event like Okeechobee Music Festival springs up each year 90 miles from our South Florida homes, a two-hour drive is a no-brainer. Truth be told, OMF is heavy into electronic dance music, or EDM. But with some “real” bands on hand, like Turquaz, Lettuce, Big Gigantic, Slightly Stoopid, Trombone Shorty, and a few others, we figured it was worth a day trip. Man, was it ever…
We hitched up Mr. Charlie, our festival home on wheels, to the F150 and headed out Friday morning. By noon, we were docked at Villa Margaret, an RV park about 10 miles off the northern edge of Lake Okeechobee and 10 miles south of the festival grounds. While there is no substitute for camping onsite, Villa Margaret is close by for a drive-by.
By 2pm, we were credentialled media heading for the venue.
About the venue… It’s like few other festival sites around, save maybe Spirit of Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida, or Virginia’s Infinity Downs, home of the Lockn’ Festival. “Sunshine Grove” once was planned as an 800-acre residential development in rural Central Florida. Plans changed, the development went fallow, and festival promoters bought it up on the cheap.
Instead of homes and clubhouses, they created a man-made beach, secluded areas, nooks for art installations, and five stages for a sell-out crowd of around 25,000.
“It’s not enough to have great music,” one OMF promoter once told Florida Trend magazine. “The site itself is the headliner.”
Magnificent weather this year was a bonus. Truly perfect festival weather.
Not to be outdone, the venue was stellar. Don’t let anyone tell you Florida lacks Mother Nature’s kiss. Set amid pine scrub and oak forests, this is the old Florida natives and locals know so well. The promoters took full advantage of the environs, carving such places as Moonlight Oasis, Chobeewobee Village, Yogachobee Beach, Aquachobee, and Jungle 51.
Then, there’s The Grove. With three full-sized stages – “Be,” “Here” and “Now” – this is where many of the festival goers gather en masse for such big name acts as Arcade Fire, Halsey, Travis Scott, and Snoop Dogg. Friday night’s Bassnector show was thick with humanity whose numbers likely left more than a few senior high schools, universities, and some millennial employers with a lot of empty desks and cubicles that day.
Lights filled the sky and lasers shone straight into the trees hundreds of yards back. It was spellbinding. There’s nothing like a night-time, outdoor festival laser, light, and fog show. To quote Ferris Bueller, we highly recommend taking one in sometime.
Locals say on a clear night, you can see the glow and hear the music from miles away. I imagine the fine people of Okeechobee (the city and the county) had no idea what was to descend on their area four or so years ago when promoters first proposed this fest. The police presence off-site was negligible as we could see; it was much more prominent on-site. But we saw no hassling. Everyone seemed to be just enjoying themselves.
OMF probably infuses a fair amount of cash into local pockets, which belong mostly to people working the agri-centric locale. It would seem, as with many local communities where a fest like this comes to town, the infusion of business and exposure probably is worth a few days’ traffic.
If you’re an RV glamper used to hook-ups at your festival campsite, doing OMF could take some adjustment. The venue offered no power, even for VIP RVers, and water fill and pump-out were scheduled throughout the weekend. But the weather was glorious – 70s and low 80s during the days, 40s overnight. So except for Thursday and Friday during the day, when it hit the low 80s, you probably could do without your gennie.
For the sea of primitive tenters and car campers, the weather and environs must have been magnificent indeed.
After all, that’s what OMF is all about. One weekend each March, when Tourism Marketers will tell you how fantastic the weather can be, this festival descends upon the lands of Central Florida and brings a wonderful musical adventure to life.