FEST PREVIEW: LIFT FESTIVAL

At Camp Bisco, the crowd at Bassnectar looked like this:

Photos by Dimitri Kouri from music fests, summer 2012 | See Dig’s Music Festival Madness

Now imagine that stage, that light show, that all-ecompassing bass, positioned at the bottom of Whaleback Mountain. Replace your ear buds while skiing and boarding with live music and natural acoustics.

Waiting in line for the lift will never be the same.

Picturing exactly this is how Executive Producer of the new LIFT festival, Pam Koslov, came up with the concept for the two-day fest in NH (2 hours from Boston) on March 16 and 17, an outdoor extravaganza of winter sports, killer live music (line up includes Conspirator, Lettuce, Ghostland Observatory, the McLovins… and all these…)

… plus hundreds of friends to party and dance with all day on the slopes and all night at the lodge. Oh, and the MC will be none other than the coolest, most hilarious, and LEAST regular radio guy in town: the one-and-only DEX MUTHA FUKIN TER, from UNregular Radio.  The guys are using LIFT fest as the jump-off for their new channel, UNRegular Fest, which will be broadcasting the insanity and live music from fests up and down the coast all summer long.

Dex Mutha Fukin Ter at Gathering of the Vibes with me this summer | Photo by Dimitri Kouri

“What we wanted to do was offer something that didn’t actually exist too often, especially in the Northeast,” Pam tells me. “We know there are fests on ski mountains, but there are very few festivals that exist while music is playing and skiing and riding are happening at the same time.”

Lifts will be open from 8am-8pm each day, and the music starts at 4pm on Friday and 11am on Saturday.

But, oh my god! You shriek. What if there’s no snow?

Not to fear!

Pam assures me that Whaleback will be making snow all weekend, and they also offer music-only tickets.

But the bottom line is you can’t ask for a better sound system than a gigantic mountain.

“The wonderful thing about mountains are they’re sort of like natural amphitheaters,” Pam says.

….so now you’ll be skiing towards that beloved magic-morphing light display you’ve missed since festival season ended.

I can guarantee that you’re in good hands with Pam and the other organizers of LIFT Fest … the whole crew have attended every major U.S. festival as patrons and staff members, so if anyone knows how to do a fest right, it’s them.

“My favorite thing about putting on a fest all kind of ties into photographers: they’re able to capture what I love the most about festivals. When you look at a musician, or when you look at the hundreds of kids in the crowd … I mean, no one’s there because they fucking hate it.

“Whether or not they saved up the entire summer to see the show, everyone is there for the same reason: because they love music,” Pam says.

Photos by Dimitri Kouri from music fests, summer 2012 | See Dig’s Music Festival Madness

“If you look at the trends, I think what’s happening is people aren’t really buying their music anymore,” she adds. “But over the last couple years, look at ticket sales for festivals—so many are selling out—the numbers are insane!”

“Even with the economy the way it is, you have 100,000 people buying tickets to Bonnaroo and Camp selling out at 10-15,000 … all these festivals are selling record numbers of tickets.”

In other words, wake up world. Music festivals are taking you over.

Does this mean that the world is going mad?

Like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland says, “We’re all a bit mad here.” But that is definitely not a bad thing, especially when good music and good friends are involved.

So I’ll see you there?

ATTENTION: THE DIG’S GIVING AWAY 3 PAIRS OF TICKETS IN THE #DAILYDIG IN THE COMING WEEKS FOR LIFT FEST. SIGN UP HERE FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN ($200 VALUE)!

LIFT FESTIVAL

FRI 3.16.12-SAT 3.17.12
WHALEBACK MOUNTAIN
160 WHALEBACK MOUNTAIN RD.
ENFIELD, NH
@LIFTFEST
LIFTFEST.NET