Photo by Sarah Elmquist
There’s a new man in town, busy organizing and planning for a South By Southwest-style music festival this weekend. Sam Brown has created the Mid West Music Fest, an event bringing music to 14 venues on Friday and Saturday featuring dozens of local bands and traveling groups from the Twin Cities and beyond. |
When Sam Brown first thought of the idea, he didn’t know much about Winona. In fact, he only knew a couple people, was still getting to know street names and scratching his head over the acronym GRSF.
What he had was an idea he could take almost anywhere, and little did he know he had stumbled upon the perfect spot. A music fest, something that showcases the music from local artists and draws bands from across the state and region, one that puts to work all the potential venues, large and small, to bring this little rivertown to life. This weekend that little dream will become a big reality, as the Mid West Music Fest (MWMF) will bring enough entertainment to Winona to satisfy music hungry listeners for months, all in one jam-packed weekend.
The music starts on Friday afternoon, with 14 venues ranging from Levee Park to coffee shops, restaurants, theaters, the history center and the senior center, and continues through Saturday (see page 1AA for a full schedule and map of events). The music ranges from Twin Cities-based hip-hop artist Dessa of Doomtree to the 50s Doo Wop of Liam Vance, to plenty of local artists and even some open mike time for the crowds. Passes for the full lineup are available at Ed’s No Name Bar, Hardts Music, and Blooming Grounds, with discount passes available at the Winona Post for just $12.
How it all began
Brown was riding with a friend from Red Wing, his hometown, to Winona, talking about other festivals he’d worked on and what his future musical ventures might entail. He’d interned and worked full-time for a nationwide concert production company, landing in Winona to serve for Americorps and bringing his musical expertise with him.
The first person he talked to about his idea was Pat Mutter, Visit Winona director, who connected him with about a half-dozen other folks in the Winona arts scene who could be resources. That, he says, is just the tip of the iceberg, as the following months became a crash course in Winona music, Winona musicians and Winona arts fanatics.
“It’s amazing,” he said of all of the people he has come to know and collaborate with. “There’s a wealth of them; they’ve touched my life in a way that I just can’t explain. It’s so invigorating to have met all the cool, interesting people here. The people are really what has made this possible.”
It’s no easy task to plan and implement a music festival, and that work is compounded when you’re talking 14 venues and dozens of bands with dozens of individual needs. But Brown is drawing on his past experience, and feels that this style of music festival is just the right fit for Winona. “I feel like it is something I’d been leading up to,” he said. “This is an absolutely beautiful place to have an event.”
The 25-year-old may be relatively new to Winona, but he knew early on that the festival taking shape was really about this town. “My hopes are that the people who see the shows, the people who perform the shows and the businesses hosting them will all walk away with a positive experience,” he said. “All along it’s been important to me that through this event, Winona sees ownership in it.” That’s part of the reason he worked to include more than 25 local bands in the lineup, out of over 70 that applied.
“I feel like Winona has so much potential, to have such a vibrant scene as far as music,” he said. “Much of that remains very underground,” but through the first MWMF, Brown hopes to bring all that Winona offers back up into the light of day.
It’s been a kind of strange romance — getting to know a town and a scene through the planning of such a big event. “I think the fact that I came in with such a clean slate was in my favor,” he said. And getting to know Winona that way has turned Brown into a river city recruit, himself. “I am thinking that I want to make Winona my home for good,” he said. Who knows what he’ll do his second year here?
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