Falcon Ridge Folk Festival - 2014 Emergeing Artists

The 2014 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artists have been announced. ime for me to get to work - digging up websites, pulling out merch lists and contact information, cleaning up the 2013 master merchandise spreadsheet and starting to populate it with 2014 content.

In roughly alphabetic order: 

1 - Allie Farris - Nashville TN - eMusic
2 - Ashley Sofia - Ticonderoga NY
3 - Avi Wisnia - Philadelphia PA - eMusic
4 - Brianne Chasanoff - New Fairfield CT - eMusic
5 - Caitlin Canty - NYC - eMusic
6 - Chris LaVancher - N Reading MA - eMusic
7 - Hayley Reardon - Marblehead MA - eMusic
8 - Jean Rohe - Brooklyn NY
9 - Jesse Terry - Stonington CT - eMusic
10 - Laney Jones & the Lively Spirits - Boston MA - eMusic
11 - Laura Zucker - San Francisco - eMusic
12 - Libby Koch - Houston TX - eMusic
13 - Liz Frame and the Kickers - Newburyport MA - eMusic
14 - Matt Nakoa - Brooklyn NY
15 - Melanie Dewey - Manlius NY
16 - Roy Schneider - Fort Myers FL - eMusic
17 - Russell Kaback - Greenfield MA - eMusic
18 - Suzie Brown - Nashville TN - eMusic
19 - The Levins - Congers NY - eMusic
20 - The Lords of Liechtenstein - NYC - eMusic
21- Tumbling Bones - Portland ME - eMusic
22 - Wendy Cahill - Bethel CT - eMusic
23 - Zak Smith - Montclair NJ - eMusic
24 - Zameer - Hollywood CA - eMusic

Some quick observations:

• I have seen / heard NONE of the emerging artists. Not surprising (I do not get out as much as I'd like) 
• Three locals - Brianne Chasanoff, Jesse Terry, and Wendy Cahill - although Russell Kaback gets half credit as a Western MA denizen
• 22 of the 24 artists have professional websites, easily found. The others I liked to Reverbnation pages. 

It has been my recent habit to buy a bunch of emusic credits, and download the most recent album from each of these pre-fest. It's nice to be able to connect with their music before meeting them at the fest, and I put the emerging artists on shuffle in the merch trailer - it occasionally leads to the delightful serendipity of an artist checking in merch and having their music come out of the trailer. 

Falcon Ridge - Most Wanted Artists 2014

Falcon Ridge recently announced the winners of the 2013 Emerging Artist Showcase "Most Wanted" (based on audience survey and appeal), to be featured in the 2014 festival. 

1 - THE BOXCAR LILIES and DARLINGSIDE tied for FIRST place, with over 28% of the votes cast.

2 - ROOSEVELT DIME - garnering exactly 24% of the votes

3 - CONNOR GARVEY - with over 23% and nearly a tie for second place

A tie is less than 1/2 of one percent apart, or 1-3 votes out of several hundred. This year nearly 2000 audience members filled out surveys, 905 of them voted in the showcase portion.

Three of the selected Most Wanted artists are "groups", just one is a solo artist. The festival chooses three Most Wanted artists, but more often than not of late (2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2013) goes with four if things are close. Can't say I argue much with the choices - although I rarely vote in the audience poll, I voted with my debit card last summer and picked up CDs from Boxcar Lilies, Roosevelt Dime, and Darlingside.

This caused me to ponder whether "groups" (duos, trios, etc.) might have a bit of an advantage in the audience survey (my guess was that they do). And since I am the mistress of the festival merchandise (which gives me no special knowledge or pull, but it does mean I have complete records going back a few years), I decided to do a little audit. Please note that my evaluation of an artist as a solo as compared to a group are based on artist name and memory; some of the "solo artists" may have appeared on stage with side musicians giving them more of a group feel but if they are billed as an individual, that's how they went. 

Here's the record for the past few years:

2007 Most Wanted: Anthony da Costa, Joe Crookston, Lindsay Mac, and Randall Williams
0 of 5 groups made it into the most wanted, 4 of 19 solo artists

2008 Most Wanted: Abi Tapia, Amy Speace, Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers, Lucy Wainwright Roche
1 of 3 groups made it into the most wanted, 3 of 21 solo artists

2009 Most Wanted: chuck e costa, Swing Caravan, The Brilliant Invention
2 of 8 groups made it into the most wanted, 1 of 16 solo artists

2010 Most Wanted: Barnaby Bright, Chris O'Brien, Folkadelics, Spuyten Duyvil
3 of 6 groups made it into the most wanted, 1 of 18 solo artists

2011 Most Wanted: Blair Bodine, ilyAIMY, Louise Mosrie, Pesky J Nixon
2 of 8 groups made it into the most wanted, 2 of 16 solo artists

2012 Most Wanted: Gathering Time, Poor Old Shine, The Yayas
3 of 8 groups made it into the most wanted, 0 of 16 solo artists

2013 Most Wanted: The Boxcar Lilies, Darlingside, Roosevelt Dime, Conor Garvey
3 of 11 groups made it into the most wanted, 1 of 13 solo artists

I think I got everyone, if I missed any "four most wanted" years, let me know. (Thanks, Ellen, I did miss Louise Mosrie in 2011, and thanks Jake, for reminding me about The Folkadelics in 2010)  Now, how does that look graphically? At the risk of being called the Nate Silver of folk festivals....

24 Emerging Artists per year, with a trend towards a higher percentage of "groups" as compared to the traditional singer-songwriter / solo artist. A low of 3 groups (2008) and a high of 11 groups (2013)

The Most Wanted Artists show a clear trend towards groups, with 2007 being the last year with no groups, averaging one solo artist since 2009. (two in 2011, none in 2012). Also of interest, 5 of the past 7 years there have been 4 "Most Wanted" artists, rather than the 3 expected. 

So you want to be a Most Wanted returning artist? Get yourself a band, because since 2009, the odds of coming back as a solo artist have been mostly under 10%, while the odds of returning as part of a group are 25% or higher.

I'm not trying to stir things up (well, maybe a little) - just trying to point out that the "most wanted" survey mechanism (audience surveys) tends to favor the louder, brighter groups, with harmonies, multi-instrumentals, etc. that might lead to a higher appeal from the hillside, as compared to the solo performer. I personally consider it an "apples and oranges" kind of thing, there's a different audience, level of appeal, etc. And yes, I've a little skin in the game - the "Most Wanted" stage slots I've really enjoyed over the years consisted of 3-4 solo performers swapping tunes (and perhaps working together instrumentally and through harmony) - they often tour together pre-fest and kind of grow together a bit. Groups tend to be a little more self-contained as a unit (vocally, instrumentally) and as great as it is to see them play the main stage, I'd rather they did a solo set rather than a song swap format.

I (personally, and I wield no particular power here other than the power to count 100s of tee shirts tossed into bins) think it would be a good thing to split the competition into group and solo categories, and perhaps choose two from each. Because looking over the past many years, I see a ton of really good singer-songwriters who did not make the "audience cut" and perhaps should get some recognition.

Although, as has been pointed out on Facebook, a lot of the "solo artists" do bring along side musicians so the line between group and solo artist gets pretty blurry. Perhaps if you bring your own side musicians, you might need to compete in the group category. Not a great deal, IMHO, since an ensemble that has been playing and singing together for a while can be pretty tough to top.

As with anything, your opinion, and mileage, may vary....

Falcon Ridge Folk Festival - Merch Tent Preview

I've dragged out Excel and am cleaning up the master spreadsheet I use to track merchandise for the folk fest. I developed this puppy back in  2007 (my first year as merch co-crew chief) and it has proven to be pretty well designed, going all these years without requiring too much modification. I set up an individual spreadsheet for each artist / performer (some require multiple sheets) and we track the units brought to fest, added or removed during fest, and checked out after. With unit pricing, it calculates the total sales, subtracts the fest commission, and tallies the artist's total sales. Pretty basic, but still much work with 50-60 artists at a typical fest weekend.

Some artists (especially the 24 "Emerging Showcase Artists") are pretty simple, with a handful of CDs (we ask them to leave the swag home, as emerging artists, just not a lot of potential for sales). Others can be quite a handful - Gandalf Murphy / Grand Slambovians (for instance) bring multiple CDs, DVDs, packaged sets, shirts, hats, coffee(!), etc. Others (such as The Kennedy's) have multiple musical personae (in their case, they've been part of The Stranglings, The Stringbusters) or have solo works for individual members of the group. So it's quite a juggling act to keep it all sorted out.

This year, I took the time to list and document all the macros; I use macros for the spreadsheet automation as well as for little maintenance task (clearing sheets, repopulating header / footer fields for the current year, etc.) - found quite a bit of redundancy which I am slowly pruning. Might as well start fresh!

This is the 25th Anniversary of the Folk Fest - started in 1988 and missing 1991. I've been volunteering since 1992, with one missed year (was in SE Asia for work) so I think this is my 21st year. I started out with the parking crew, and the year I missed was a good opportunity to switch over to the festival tee-shirt (merch) crew. In 2007, Tee-Shirts and Performer Merch merged and I was a signing bonus (i.e. - crew chief Ellen acceded to the merger if I got a co-crew chief position with the responsibility of tracking performer merchandise).

In the ensuing years, I've seen a lot less music from in front of the stage (holing up in the merch trailer for much of the fest, which admittedly is line of site from main stage) but I've also gotten to meet and know a lot of the performers. It's a decent trade, IMHO. As the saying goes, I have "risen to the level of my incompetence" and here I shall stay.

Looking at the festival artists (the Emerging Artists have not yet been announced) it looks like a pretty decent fest. We're missing that big headliner (someone like Richard Thompson, Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Arlo Guthrie, etc.) but Dar Williams is back for the first time in many years and she's pretty much a headliner these days. And although a lot of old friend are absent (of the Patty Larkin, John Gorka, Richard Shindell, Greg Brown, Cheryl Wheeler generation), there are plenty of really great musicians.

Back for 2013, Falcon Ridge mainstays The Kennedys (I've missed ya, although maybe less so the mayhem of your merchandise), the Nields, Red Molly, the Grand Slambovians. Venerable faves such as Vance Gilbert, Susan Werner, Eliza Gilkyson, Mary Gauthier, Dan Navarro and Ellis Paul all add punch to the center of the line-up. And some newer faves - Spuyten Duvil, Jason Spooner Band, Andrew & Noah Band fill out the lineup.  Not ignoring the dance tent bands, plenty of punch there as well.

So...here it comes again. A week later this year (and hopefully pushing us into a little bit of sunny and dry weather in August). 

Falcon Ridge!

It's that time of year again. I'm knee deep in Excel again, setting up a spreadsheet for the performer merchandise for the Falcon Ridge Folk Fest.

I took on the mantle of performer merchandise crew chief back in 2006, and spent some hours assembling a magic spreadsheet that tracks merchandise sales. Each artist gets a worksheet, into which I preload all the CDs and merchandise I can find. I've pulled the performer list from the website, and have just gotten a copy of the 24 new artist showcase performers.

Once on site, we update the spreadsheet as the artists come in, and then afterwards as they check out. It's all very efficient (and technologically a bit off base, in terms of the spirit of the fest) - but it's helped the festival organizers really get a handle on merchandise sales, help us get the artists paid and on the way after the fest, and makes everyone's life easier.

Will be a little bit of a crush for me this year - I'm heading to Montana the week prior to the folk fest for a yoga retreat. So trying to get a jump on things now.

No rest for the weary!