BEND, Ore. — The Homegrown Music Festival, which took place in early May, took an ambitious swing this year. The festival featured national touring headliners, a central stage and a new location.
The Festival Founder and Director, Scott McClelland, said this year was the most highly attended Homegrown Music Festival. Despite the increase in attendance, McClelland said taking such a large step forward has hurt the festival financially.
“Unfortunately, the festival lost considerable amount of money this year, and I started a GoFundMe soon after the event to try to recoup those losses in hopes we could do this again,” McClelland said.
According to McClelland, this is a common occurrence when stepping into new territories and trying to pay artists their guarantees and production for their stages.
The GoFundMe website says, the risk was too big this year to pay some of the artists and production. McClelland says the money would just go to paying back costs from this year.
“This GoFundMe is just a recovery from this year so I can, in good conscience, continue the festival moving forward,” McClelland said.
McClelland says, despite the losses, he hopes to try again in the future and make the festival more maintainable.
“As support comes in, that gives me more confidence to do this again and learn from the lessons this year,” McClelland said. “It was a big swing this year and taking those lessons and applying them to create a more sustainable event so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again when it comes to the financial constraints.”
