The second Old Friend Farms Music Festival will be taking place this weekend in Prairie Grove, nestled in the Boston Mountains. This four-day event is hosted by the owners of the land, artists and musicians Noah Richmond and Dana Louise. The pair visited the Firmin-Garner Performance Studio to discuss the festivities they planned to host on their homestead with Ozarks at Large’s Sophia Nourani.
Noah Richmond: We've been getting lots of bug bites in the forest the last few weeks, working on continuing to develop our system of trail vehicles on the property, which not only provides really awesome opportunities just to see some of the beauty that we have to offer, but also creates more access and makes it easier to get to the far reaches of the property. And so we've been picking off lots of ticks and shooing away lots of horseflies and mosquitoes, and everything's ready. Yeah, it's Arkansas living.
Sophia Nourani: Well, that's part of the experience. Tell people a bit about how it went last year, a little more detail.
Noah Richmond: Yeah. So last year was really, really amazing. We were kind of naive going into it, not knowing what to expect, and were so pleasantly surprised with the outcome and the flood of support from the community, and also just how people seemed to kind of understand the vision and go along with the program without really any instruction at all. We were able to pay 15 bands to perform. We had clinics, we had outdoors programming.
We partnered with Boston Mountain Solid Waste and were able to qualify as a zero-waste event. We partnered with Food Loops and were able to use nothing but compostable cutlery and serviceware. And we were able to pull hundreds and hundreds of pounds of waste and divert it from going into the landfills.
We got a good wrap around the idea of what a festival can be, and we're just excited to do it again. I think we've done a good job about staying true to what our vision is. And we don't have any big money corporate sponsors.
Sophia Nourani: That just goes into the overall mission of what you’re trying to do. Obviously, there's a large ecological aspect to it, and there's also a community aspect, because people also, correct me if I'm wrong, stay on the property throughout the festival.
Noah Richmond: Yeah. So the whole festival is four days and three nights. Camping is included with all festival passes. That gives the idea, on our end, just to create a community of people that are like-minded and share our vision of stewardship for the land.
Our big theme is this Leave No Trace philosophy. And essentially, what Leave No Trace means to us is just to leave the place in the condition that it was when you arrived to it. Last year, we were amazed at how well people got on board with that idea. People packed their own trash out. At the end of the festival, we did a big police line through the festival grounds and were not able to even come up with a single full bag of trash.
People were just so respectful and considerate, and the community that surrounded us just blew my mind with the way they respected the land, understood the values that we were trying to showcase, the way that they leaned into the history of the place, and just added to that history in such a gentle, kind of moving way. It made us really excited to do it again.
There are very few communities like that that can show up to a stranger's backyard, party hard for four days, and then leave it like they were never there. It was such a gift from the community to us to be able to make it all come together that way.
Sophia Nourani: Tell us more about what people can expect this year. You're saying now that people will be able to just walk, although that sounds beautiful, by the way. Give us some more details, maybe about the music and other things people can expect.
Noah Richmond: Yeah, we've got amazing music from all over the country. We've partnered with some awesome local partners, including an organization called Dirt Movement that is helping facilitate some community movement, which takes place in the form of curated rides on the gravel roads and runs, as well as hikes on the trail system.
These are not races. They're not competitions. They're just good ways to get people moving during the festival. Of all abilities and backgrounds and capabilities, there will be an opportunity for you to get yourself moving.
We've also got a sound healing workshop. We've got a camp choir. We've got One South Main coming out doing some ceramics, so you'll be able to come and make some ceramics at the festival in the form of these really sweet kind of memory stones that you could either take with you or leave in the trail system as a little token and memory of maybe someone that you've lost, or just a reminder you want to give yourself or give someone else. A little placeholder you could leave for someone else to find.
That helps people slow down and tune into the trail and just be looking for Easter eggs, essentially.
We'll be having some opportunities for community collaboration in the forms of an open sign-up community stage, opportunities for festivalgoers to actually help create and curate some programming themselves.
Dana Louise: Some of the musicians that are going to be playing—we're excited about everyone—but Carsey Blanton and Devin Spruill, we're going to have Trout Fishing in America, which is my dad's band. I'm excited. They feel like two dads somehow. Angela Autumn, Sad Daddy, Dylan Earl is going to play and be back, Mike Dillon and Brian Haas, and The Creek Rocks. There's a huge list of musicians and people coming from near and far that we are so excited to have grace the stage.
Sophia Nourani: That's awesome. And when is this going to be taking place?
Dana Louise: This will be September 25 through the 28.
Sophia Nourani: The website, where can people find tickets and more information?
Noah Richmond: Yeah, if you visit oldfriendfarms.com, you can get information about tickets. You can get information about how to join in, whether that be volunteering or signing up for some programming. The website is just kind of your go-to place to educate yourself about what we're trying to do, to see other events that we're having on the farm. We'll have a few events leading up to the festival out at the farm and in town.
We're really just trying to build our community up as strong as we can, because we believe in the community and believe in the power of people just getting together with similar values and similar goals and seeing what happens and what comes out of it.
These community trail days that we've been hosting about once a month to get the trail system ready for the festival have really just been enlightening in how much can get done with just a small group of committed people giving it their all and just being willing to show up. It's really what it takes. We've had new friendships blossom out of that and really found our community.
Dana Louise: This new community is forming through those trail days, and friendships are deepening. People are kind of taking ownership and excitement about the property being a communal space and are coming up with their own workshops and things to bring in. I'm really excited to have those later this fall and into next spring.
Dana Louise and Noah Richmond with Old Friend Farms. You can hear Ozarks at Large’s Sophia Nourani visit Old Friend Farms and talk about the first music festival on our website. For tickets to the event and more information, oldfriendfarms.com.
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