Minnesota Festival Support

RiverSong served its mission in the 2012 festival by providing a high-quality music festival experience in a natural setting. The festival showcased local and regional musical talent, offered educational artistic opportunities for all ages and demonstrated the skill and knowledge of a diverse group of talented artists. It highlighted the Hutchinson area's growing arts culture and folk music heritage, and leveraged the wide array of strong community assets available. Our outcomes related to overall festival mission were evaluated by the volunteer steering committee. Following the festival, all sub-committees met to debrief on their particular areas of focus, including talent, site/security/technology, marketing, fundraising, hospitality and volunteer coordination. Each group provided feedback that the steering committee in turn discussed during a debrief session. Feedback was very positive, especially related to the artists showcased. 2: One of the festival's biggest assets is that roots music covers such a wide variety; there will always be many talented artists to choose from. It directly connects to Hutchinson's heritage, since the community was founded by a family of folk singers. In addition to the more than 50 artists featured during the festival weekend, RiverSong added a pre-festival music series, which brought musicians to various venues for the four months leading to the festival. The series was hosted at the Hutchinson Center for the Arts, Hutchinson Mall, Crow River Winery and Zellas restaurant. It brought awareness to the upcoming festival, provided high-quality music performances to the community that would've otherwise not been available, and built audience for the artists. Anecdotally, steering committee and ticket gate volunteers noted many festival attendees were there because they liked the artist during our music series, and this was also indicated by responses to our post-festival website survey.