Best Fests: Fly Free Fest
BEST FESTS is a Young Mary’s Record series dedicated to festivals -large, medium, small, tiny - that showcase artists, musicians, and create an undeniably enjoyable environment for their festival-goers. This post is dedicated to Tennessee's inaugural Fly Free Fest! We are very excited to introduce all y’all to Corey Petree, the festival founder.
Young Mary's Record: Hi Corey -- one of my very favorite Tennesseans -- how and when was Fly Free Fest first birthed into this world?
Corey Petree: Hi Mary - certainly one of my favorite Kentuckians - Fly Free Fest was dreamt up as a wedding idea. My wife Colleen and I originally wanted to get married as the opening ceremony of the festival...what better reception than 3 days of camping and dancing with your favorite people? We very quickly realized how much planning goes into each of those things individually and decided to get married at an earlier time so that we could give necessary focus to both events. We had already built up enough excitement and encouragement to do the festival that we KNEW we had to do it.
(Corey and his sweet wife, Colleen.)
YMR: What were the conversations like leading up to the decision to host a festival? What do the optimists say and what about the naysayers?
CP: Optimists say "If you book them, they will come". We're really proud of the lineup we put together with the budget that we had and I think we tend to side with the optimists in thinking that others will feel what we do. Naysayers tend to think that big events like this are too risky to take on. It's certainly a big risk and many things need to go our way to have a successful event, but the reward for this is so much bigger than any other thing we could ever think of investing in. We've already made many new lifelong friendships and found so many people that want to support this event and make it successful, there's really nothing that can take that away.
(Festival site at Red River Canoe Campground, Adams, TN.)
YMR: What have been the challenges of putting on this festival (especially unexpected ones!)? What rewards do you expect?
CP: Parenthood has made the process very interesting. We have a 1 year old now and it's not as easy to pick up and go promote around different cities as often as we might need to, but thankfully we've pulled together an amazing street team that is pushing the word out all over the southeast.
We've also had a few artists back out on us last minute. Announcing the artist and feeling the buzz going about them, then having to take that away from your audience and go back to the drawing board...it makes for a frustrating process. We're very thankful for all of the artists that have not only remained professional but have gone out of their way to support what we're doing and lending a helping hand. It takes an army to put this kind of thing on.
YMR: For aspiring future Fly Free Fest musicians, what are you looking for when booking this festival?
CP: For the bigger artists, we looked at their fan connection and live shows. We wanted to book well-known artists that have remained humble and are passionate about their relationship with their fans. Most of the larger artists we have travel with such a cult-like following, it was hard to ignore.
For the up-and-comers, live videos are huge. While we were familiar with many of our smaller artists before we started this, we wanted to do some branching out ourselves to find some bands that would create a unique experience for our fans. We didn't have time to scout shows every night, so a lot of our research was done online. It's incredible what a well done live video can do for your band.
(RJD2 will play at 11pm on Friday, October 11th at Fly Free Festival.)
YMR: Who's playing this year and why are they bad-ass?
CP: I don't even know where to start on this one. RJD2 has been on the scene for over a decade now, and he's one of the most well-respected producers out there. A lot of the newer electronic music coming out has influence from this man. Papadosio has created a family of fans and their songs deliver messages of awareness, love, and positivity. They have hosted their own festival, Rootwire, for the past couple of years, and we wouldn't be surprised to see them selling out amphitheaters in a year or two. Rubblebucket brings a live experience that you won't find with any other band. On their last tour they traveled with giant robots controlled like puppets ascended over the crowd. Their dancey funky indie vibes will have the place in a dancing frenzy. JEFF the Brotherhood are locals who've made it big. They've released a live album on Jack White's "Third Man Records", worked with Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach on their most recent album, and their interviews have kept us entertained for hours. Cloud Cult is a powerful group with a phenomenal story. If you really get to know them, and a lot of folks out there do, they will touch the bottom of your heart with every song. There's a great documentary on Hulu right now for free, I'd really you rather watch that to know why they're SO badass than have me ruin it for you. Moon Taxi? Yeah, they pretty much rock our worlds. These boys are selling out venues everywhere, see them up close while you can!
Really, its taking everything I have not to list out why every band on our lineup is bad-ass. Go to our lineup page of our website ( HERE! ) and preview them all for yourself...you'll see!
YMR: What are the pros and cons of hosting an event and/or being in the music industry in Chattanooga/Knoxville/any other applicable area?
CP: One of the pros for me is that we don't have many festivals of this size and nature in the southeast. The scene is still emerging and people are thrilled to be a part of the growth. Bonnaroo is what people know down here for the most part and we're excited to share something different with festival goers. One of the downsides is that artists often move away from Chattanooga/Knoxville/etc to "make it". Not many cities in the south support a good local music scene, so most musicians end up flocking to Nashville where the market is oversaturated. Chattanooga's scene is growing with Track 29 bringing bigger artists and Knoxville is growing with Midnite Voyage, but music hasn't been established as part of their culture yet.
(Festival site at Red River Canoe Campground, Adams, TN.)
YMR: For people who want to come, how much does it cost -- where do they stay -- can they just show up? Logistics, hit me with them!
CP: General Admission ticket pre-sales are at $95 leading up to the week of the festival, where they increase to a $125 gate price. With your ticket you get a camping spot where you can post up with us for the weekend. Folks are more than welcome to show up at the gate until we reach capacity.
Fly Free Fest will commence October 11-13 in Adams, TN. You can find out more (as you should), buy tickets (as you should), and plan your trip (as you should) by visiting their official website (HERE), Facebook, or Twitter.
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