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It’s so Olympia that there’s a coffee cart with a full lineup of espresso drinks.
“People are really excited about it,” said Mariella Luz of K Records, one of the event’s organizers. Sometimes, the line is about an hour long.
“It’s one of those funny, awesome Olympia things. You’re on a farm 20 miles outside of town, there’s all this amazing food, and there’s a coffee cart with this delicious, amazing espresso out among the hay bales.”
Yes, hay bales. The weekend music festival/camp/indie family reunion is so bucolic that you might expect to hear tunes from “Oklahoma” instead of tunes by the likes of Arrington De Dionysio and the Hive Dwellers.
The festival does, after all, happen on a 30-acre organic farm in Rochester. Besides the music, there’s camping, swimming, picnicking – and, yes, hay.
“The base of the stage is about 70 hay bales, so it’s about 40 feet by 20 feet, and then the hay bales are covered with plywood and that is covered with stage carpeting,” said Jade Ajani of Portland, one of the organizers. “We have lights and a big PA system.
“Our neighbors have a small wonderful dairy, and they are happy to lend us some hay bales for the weekend.”
The seventh annual festival includes a bigger-than-ever lineup of 30 musical acts.
“It might be a little bit crazy,” Luz said. “Saturday’s going to be just so packed, but I think it’s going to be really good.”
It’s also offering comedy for the first time, with Portland’s Comedy Is OK.
Saturday and Sunday, the day begins with yoga classes outdoors.
And then there’s the food – grown on the farm – and the coffee, provided by Olympia Coffee Roasters. This year, the food will be prepared and benefit Portland’s Project Grow, a community-building program focused on agriculture and the arts. And proceeds from the coffee go to the Olympia All-Ages Project, which is hunting for a new space following the closure of Northern at 321 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia.
And the food isn’t just fresh and organic – it’s served on real plates. (Bring your own or use a provided one and wash it yourself.)
“Most of the people we know aren’t doing things like drinking bottled water and eating fast-food and stuff like that,” Luz said. “That doesn’t exist as an option for us already.”
