Kellams: Dana Idlet and Noah Richmond are the proprietors of Old Friend Farms, a scenic 120-acre property outside of Prairie Grove. They're also the founders of Old Friends Reunion, a music festival with skill-sharing workshops and camping on the property itself. Next weekend, Dana and Noah will be hosting their third Old Friends Reunion. Ozarks at Large's Sophia Nourani sat down with the dynamic duo to discuss the music lineup for this year and reflect on the festival's growth since its creation in 2024. Dana says the idea stemmed from when she would go to music festivals as a child with her father's band.
Idlet: My favorite ones were these Canadian folk festivals, and they always had workshops throughout the days that were wide ranging, not just musical workshops, but just getting people connected to the landscape and mushroom identification and spoon carving and just all kinds of things they would offer. And it just has always stuck with me and feels like an important thing that we'd like to bring into our festival, as well as just concerts, is getting people inspired to learn from each other, try new things.
Richmond: We moved out to our farm six years ago, maybe, and lived in our van for two years while we were building our house and then had our kiddo. And throughout that whole time, we kind of realized the magic and the possibilities out on this piece of land and just how special it was and how, even though we own it on paper, we really just feel like the current stewards of that place. And finding a way to safely and responsibly share access to this place was really important to us. I think the festival is a way that we've found to be able to do that, where we still kind of have control of the reins, but we're able to let people come and experience the place and see what it's like. I'm still blown away at how many Arkansans have never gotten out in the Natural State, and it's really cool to see that all happen. And kind of the growth over the last three years of the festival has been just really inspiring and awesome.
Nourani: I want to hear about the workshops and also the music, everything that you'll be having this year.
Idlet: Yeah, we're so excited about this year's lineup, and this is the first year that we've kind of extended ourselves beyond just close friendships that we're booking through. And so we have this whole New Orleans contingency of people coming up and within one band, this band, Chicken Milk. There are four other people coming to play and showcase their music, and they're all amazing. And all these worlds just keep opening up. We've got Mike Dillon coming back with Earl Harvin.
Richmond: Mike has been one of our biggest supporters from the very get-go. Each year he brings something totally unique and totally different.
Idlet: His wife designs our T-shirts.
Nourani: Yeah, I love the art this year too.
Idlet: Yeah. That's special. That's Lisa Kruse out of Eureka and she's been a vendor. She was someone that we didn't really know before we started doing the festival. And she signed up to vend the first year, and we just really hit it off. And she makes these amazing ceramic dolls and moons and wall hangings and vases. And she drew us a card, or she painted a card for us last year after the festival as a thank you. And I just fell in love with it. These animals playing instruments. And so we asked her to paint the poster for this year. And she did. But it does feel really amazing to have this organic knowing of the festival even. We get a lot of word of mouth. I mean, it's so small that we don't really need thousands of people to see the poster or anything. So we're okay putting in a few more years of hard work before it sells out.
Richmond: Well, it's awesome to see it blossom in its own slow but consistent pace. I think if the festival were to explode, it would be out of our scope and out of our ability pretty quickly, and we're able to grow with the festival. And so when we're met with new challenges, they're reasonable and they're approachable and we can find solutions and can dream big and still keep things within a scope that's manageable.
It's a large property, but we really like limiting the amount of tickets that we sell in an effort to keep some sense of space and that sense of wildness and nature. We don't want campers stacked on top of each other. We don't want people unable to sleep because there's too much going on. We want everybody to be able to find their place. And if you're the kind of person that wants to stay up all night and play loud music, there's a place for you there. And if you're the kind of person that wants to wake up early and greet the sunrise, there's a place for you there as well.
Yeah, we're really, really thrilled this year to have a partnership with ChillFire Sauna. They're bringing their barrel sauna out to the property, so we will have an amazing world-class sauna experience available for people. So it's not just a cold shower this year. We have food vendors and chefs coming to help prepare food for the staff and artists and the festivalgoers.
Idlet: Yeah, we have Margaret's Flavor Co coming out to food. Alberto and Taylor also introduced me to some farmers this weekend at the market. And so we have Honest Dirt Market Garden. They're going to donate some produce and we're going to be able to feed all of our volunteers and musicians all weekend long. Some chefs have come on board. Monica Diodati from Two Friends Books is going to cook a couple meals and Brooks Cameron is also coming out and bringing a crew.
Richmond: And then Monica is also bringing a library. So there will be a pay what you can, either rent for the weekend or if you want to take it home with you, pay whatever, library, that'll have all sorts of different things from kids books to big kids books to local artists and authors.
Idlet: Proud to say that we will have Ass Class back.
Richmond: That was one of the big hits from last year. It's a butt-centric workout, not just for the booty, but also for your whole body and your mind and spirit.
Idlet: Our friend Ilona does that. We have Kelly and Donna from Still on the Hill doing the soapbox stage, which is like a sign-up. Sing a song for justice and equality.
We're going to have square dancing, sound healing, Natural Threads is going to do a live screen printing on Saturday where you can bring a shirt, and they'll print an image on it for you for donation. We have this little place that our friends have helped us curate called Bert's Market and the Arsagas donate a bunch of. They've done this every year, but they donate a bunch of coffee and we have free coffee for everyone in the morning. So bring a cup, fill it up, put some dollars in a thing if you feel like it. But that's been a very sweet thing that is growing too. Yeah, just check out our website. We post links often through social media. The social media is the same, just at Old Friend Farms on Instagram and Facebook.
Nourani: Well, thank you guys so much.
Idlet: Yeah. Thank you.
Richmond: Thank you.
Kellams: That's Ozarks at Large's Sophia Nourani speaking with Dana Idlet and Noah Richmond, owners of Old Friend Farms and the organizers of Old Friends Reunion. The festival, which takes place next weekend. Songs that you heard during this interview included, in order, "Chicken Pocket" by Chicken Milk, "Honey the Peregrine" by Mike Dillon and "The Optimist Anthem" by Still on the Hill.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
