Like the cultures in California, Texas and Florida, Colorado’s culture can be easily reduced to a handful of characteristics. Where California has surfing, vineyards and the Beach Boys, Colorado is a haven for winter sports, top-notch beer and bluegrass bands.
Whether these really are a few of the Centennial State’s favorite things, Avon’s WinterWonderGrass festival could serve as an unofficial celebration for Colorado stereotypes. Now in its fourth year, the festival marries bluegrass music and craft beer just a few miles from Beaver Creek and Vail, two of the state’s ski meccas.
Coloradans have responded in kind: WinterWonderGrass has sold out each of its three years, and this year’s event, set for Friday through Feb. 21, is projected to follow suit.
A sense of community has kept fans and bands coming back since the inaugural year, when the festival was confined to the parking lot of Crazy Mountain Brewery in Edwards. “It’s obviously gotten bigger since then, but it’s still not so huge that it’s impersonal,” said Paul Hoffman, frontman of the five-piece stringband Greensky Bluegrass. The band has played every iteration of WinterWonderGrass, including the festival’s new outpost in Tahoe, Calif. “Festivals like Bonnaroo are great and all, but no one knows who you are there. Here, we’re all standing around the same heater.”
If you’re playing an outdoor show in Avon in the middle of February, that spot by the heater is essential. “Playing bluegrass in those temperatures is not a common sense move,” Hoffman said, laughing. “And neither is standing out there watching it. Colorado is such a weird place.”
This year’s WinterWonderGrass will pack more than 25 bluegrass bands onto four stages, including local string stars Leftover Salmon and the Wood Brothers. And if you’re worried about missing music while you’re on slopes, don’t be: The concerts don’t start until 2:30 p.m., expressly to accommodate mogul mavens.
New this year is the Soapbox Stage, an intimate, single-mic venue sporting an accompanying wine bar/cafe. (Think down-home lounge.)
It sounds simple enough to move tickets to an event combining some of Colorado’s favorite things, but the state’s mountain town winters aren’t exactly forgiving. Aside from persuading people to stand outside in potentially frigid temperatures, there are a host of logistical variables to take into account in organizing a winter music festival, particularly at altitude. “(Vail) Pass can close, and we have to worry about snow removal,” says WinterWonderGrass partner and marketing director Jennifer Brazill. “But we know how unpredictable the weather is, so we have a lot of places for people to keep warm.”
Perhaps the biggest hurdle is simply getting permission to hold the festival in the first place. Scott Stoughton, the festival’s chief organizer, helped found Snowball, Colorado’s other offseason music festival, which has been plagued by venue changes since its inception. In 2012, Snowball was ousted from Avon after a rash of 140 arrests marred its inaugural event. It relocated to Winter Park the next year before again being turned away, landing unceremoniously in the parking lot of Mile High Stadium in 2014. The festival has been in limbo ever since.
“I learned a lot from Snowball,” Stoughton said. “Quality is more than quantity, and it’s important to be sensitive to the community. Sure, we can put the Red Hot Chili Peppers on stage in the middle of town, but would it be good for the town?”
This emphasis on community isn’t just talk on Stoughton’s part. The festival is almost aggressively eco-conscious, with posted signs reminding attendees to leave no trace. They’ve even banned the sale of plastic bottles, and they provide attendees with reusable steel mugs to quaff the wares offered by the festival’s 18 Colorado craft breweries. (And, sure, water.)
Whether WinterWonderGrass has found the definitive cure to Colorado music festivals’ wintertime blues, it has at least found its people.
Tickets and more information can be found at winterwondergrass.com.
Dylan Owens: 303-954-1785, dowens@denverpost.com