After booking more than a dozen bands for the Aug. 9-10 event, Shagbark Farm owner John Crissman says organizers “just couldn’t climb the mountain” to proceed with this year’s festival.
Mothballing Cowpie: After a disappointing 2012, Cowpie Music Festival now aims for 2014 return.
The Cowpie Music Festival isn’t being put out to pasture, just taking a one-year breather.
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After scrambling to assemble a smaller version of the two-day music festival on Shagbark Farm south of Grand Rapids, farm owner and festival founder John Crissman today pulled the plug on what would have been the 12th edition of the unusual event.
“It’ll be back,” Crissman told me, noting organizers plan to start earlier and get the sponsorship they need to assemble the 2014 event. “We aren’t killing it.”
The news comes after organizers had already booked more than a dozen bands for the Aug. 9-10 event, including Cowpie fave and Detroit blues-rocker Motor City Josh, along with regional bands such as Big Dudee Roo, Luke Warm & The Not So Hots, Fauxgrass, The Thirsty Perch Blues Band, Tony LaJoye Trio, The Turnips, Jimmie Stagger and The Hula Dogs.
Delilah DeWylde & the Lost Boys played in front of an enthusiastic crowd at the 2012 Cowpie.
But they didn’t land an anticipated Saturday night headliner, The Bottle Rockets, and Crissman said they just couldn’t pull it off financially this year. He noted the event — which offers rustic camping for concertgoers — has lost a considerable amount of money the past couple of years, with the 2012 festival hampered by bad weather early in the weekend that had tractors pulling cars through the mud.
Those heavy rains on Friday drastically reduced turnout for a festival that featured an expanded, 43-band lineup covering 17 genres on two stages. Crissman had initially hoped to trim the festival to a one-stage affair this year before eventually deciding it should be “mothballed” until 2014.
“We will be up to date and do things earlier” next year, he insisted.
“We tried and tried and tried. We just couldn’t climb the mountain,” Crissman said in a statement posted with “a heavy heart” on Facebook. “Look for us in the near future as we will be actively ramping up for the future of Cowpie.”
Email John Sinkevics at jsinkevics@gmail.com.
Copyright 2013, Spins on Music
