SUNSET SOUNDS
Mini-festivals on farms outside NYC, transportation included.
This is where Beach Mountain started, with a simple idea of using music to get New Yorkers out of the city. I saw that the lack of car ownership was keeping New Yorkers from exploring all the amazing outdoors just outside the city limits.
As a response, we started building stages in fields around NYC and including round trip charter bus transportation in the ticket price. The result was the sunset sounds series: one day festivals where the setting became the headliner and community could thrive.
THE IDEA
The original point of Filibuster was to experiment with every element of live music to make it more communal, more joyous, more impactful… closer to its full potential. What Sunset Sounds taught us is that the quickest shortcut to that potential is to build the experience out of people’s daily bubbles, away from constant stimulation, sometimes away from cell phone reception at all.
It taught us to take away as much of the subconscious anxiety caused by the urban world as possible and build an experience around temporary community. To do this we had to overcome two key challenges: 1) removing the transportation barrier for attendees and 2) the logistics of building a music experience in locations with no existing infrastructure.
THE EXPERIENCE
To overcome the transportation hurdle, we developed relationships with local bus operators that gave us the ability to book and alter our charter bus fleet with incredible flexibility. We had a simple rule: no driving your own car. The bus ride was part of the experience, keeping our community safe while giving them a curated “show” on the bus ride complete with karaoke, trivia, and premixed DJ sets.
Overcoming the logistical challenges required a unified team effort amongst all of our vendors, from food to staging. We incentivized them to bring their own power, and worked as one unit with local governments to make the experience positive for vendors, ticket holders, and the local community.