Organizer Cameron Strong cites lack of ticket sales and financial considerations for forcing him to scrap the mid-October event. He vows Cold Creek Campout will be back in 2018.
Festival a No Go: Cold Creek Campout won’t set up camp in October at Val Du Lakes after all.
Michigan’s Cold Creek Campout music festival slated for mid-October has been canceled for 2017, but its chief organizer insists it will be back next year.
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Desmond Jones (Photo/Anna Sink)
Originally scheduled to take place Oct. 13-14 at the Val Du Lakes Resort in Mears – after the inaugural 2016 event was held near Fremont – the festival had touted a lineup that included regional favorites Desmond Jones, Bigfoot Buffalo, Watching for Foxes, Melophobix, Fauxgrass, Mark Lavengood, The Legal Immigrants and many more.
Festival founder Cameron Strong cited financial considerations for the cancellation, telling Local Spins that the festival had “zero ticket sales” just two months before the festival was set to take place at the new site.
“I wouldn’t say finalizing and timing played a key. It was mainly just having the money in time to be able to promote,” he said. “I just had no finances to put in to get us off the ground.”
Strong added that temporarily losing his job at The Brew Works of Fremont for a couple of months also “took a toll” on him financially. The brewery was sold and is under new ownership; Strong is now back as one of the managers, he said.
Cameron Strong
He also cited “a few unexpected costs that bumped up the (festival) budget,” adding: “I didn’t want to cross my fingers I was going to make enough at the gate to pay for everything. I would rather hold off a year and be able to do a full production like this to the best of my ability.”
Strong said performers were emailed to alert them to the cancellation and he’s already spoken to Val Du Lakes about staging the festival there in 2018, likely earlier in the year.
Co-organizer Nathan Purchase called the cancellation “pretty upsetting,” saying only that he would be stepping down as agent and co-producer.
Strong insisted he “will be promoting a lot harder and pushing pre-sales” for 2018.
“I’m talking to the bands still, but I am steadily working again and I intend to put together a committee so it’s not just one or two people doing everything,” he said. “I’m already talking with members of the community to get a solid line up of directors going.”
Copyright 2017, Spins on Music LLC
