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Thousands of folks gather at CMA Music Fest 2008. [Photo by Conrad Flynn]
Happy Sunday!
This week we wander through some iconic music festivals. You know, the ones that played on for days, the soulful sounds jamming out in football stadiums, wide open farm fields, amphitheaters, suburban parks, and downtown bars.
You were there — with a thousand of your closest friends, everyday from dawn ‘til dusk. Perhaps overnight if you brought your camper or booked a hotel stay.
And when it was all over, you were exhausted but elated!
The sweaty tank tops, sun burnt shoulders, and tired feet were worth it. The lousy performances gave you a chance to go pee. The stellar performances shook your world and made you feel alive.
And as the stage lights faded, you walked back out to real life, still soaking up all the magic you just witnessed.
In this issue, we take you back to a couple infamous outdoor shows we attended.
And we set our eyes on the beloved festival poster — the artform that shapes a festival’s visual identity and captures its spirit and history — craved and collected long after the music stops.
Thanks for reading!
Your Curio Roadies,
Wendy & Kate
This week in Curio:
Table of Contents
Troves & Tales
The summer of Fan Fair.
CMA Music Festival signage welcomes fans to downtown Nashville in 2008. Photo by Conrad Flynn
I grew up listening to Country music. My dad listened; So did grandpa. I grew up in the northeastern part of the U.S., not the south. Yet, Country music was the collective “theme song” of my youth and then some, interrupted only on weekends when my mom played her polkas.
As far back as I can remember, Dad and I followed coverage of Nashville’s annual “Fan Fair” festival — a week or so in early June where all the Country stars, from rising to legendary, gathered in Music City to indulge their biggest fans. With concerts from morning ‘til night and meet-n-greets where you could actually talk to your musical hero, Fan Fair was no ordinary festival.
In the ‘80s and early ‘90s, we didn’t have internet, and there was no recorded broadcast to enjoy Fan Fair from the cheap seats at home. But Dad and I followed the festivities as best we could — on radio, on The Nashville Network (TNN) cable channel, in newspapers and magazines. George Jones, Reba McEntire, the Judds, Randy Travis, Minnie Pearl, Loretta Lynn….and TNN hosts, Ralph Emery, Crook & Chase, Shotgun Red….all the greats in one place! How cool it would be to be there. It probably would never happen, but we dreamed it could every summer.
 | Fan Fair began in 1972 as a way to deter die-hard Country fans from crashing an annual radio industry convention meant for disc jockeys. The Nashville Fair Grounds hosted most Fan Fairs through the ‘90s, where fans reveled in live shows, exhibits, and autograph booths. At the 25th anniversary festival in 1996, Garth Brooks signed autographs for 23 straight hours at his last-minute surprise Fan Fair appearance. |
In the early 2000s, Fan Fair was moved to stadiums and bars across downtown Nashville, and was renamed the “CMA Music Festival” (later “CMA Fest”). Shortened to four days over a long weekend, the iconic event remained true to its intent — to create the ultimate fan experience where Country music lovers could get up close to their favorite stars. The ABC network has aired edited recordings of each “Fan Fair” since 2004, showcasing the hundreds of celebrities who sing and sign and smile for the hundreds of thousands of fans who travel in from all over the world.
Fast forward from 1990-something to 2008. I’m living in Nashville, working for a Country music website called CountryHound. The website was promoting a contest to win tickets to the upcoming CMA Festival, and I of course tell my dad about it. He enters, religiously, once a day for the run of the contest. Not sure how many people entered; The website was in its infancy. But when it came time for my boss to pick the winner, lo’ and behold….
Dad won.
Dad won tickets to Fan Fair.
Holy shit.
As my boss made me aware of these developments, assuring me he checked and triple-checked all the fine print to make sure relatives of website staff were indeed allowed to win, my mind and heart out-raced each other into a speechless frenzy of disbelief and excitement.
Dad and I were going to CMA Fest!
My attendance at CMA Music Fest apparently predated my obsession of capturing moments with my cell phone (Did I even have one then?). Thanks to others’ online archives, I did find images of the 2008 Riverfront stage where Dad and I caught a couple of daytime performances. Photo by Conrad Flynn
My memories of our specific “Fan Fair” experience are sadly foggy. I do remember us struggling with the intense June heat. Dad and I wanted to enjoy all the different venues our free 4-day passes gave us access to, but we felt drained walking through downtown, no matter how much we hydrated.
I do distinctly recall Dad’s nodding-with-approval smile, the one he’d get when he was listening to “real” Country music — the old stuff of Willie and Waylon and Merle — especially at a live show. We went to each of the four evening concerts at the football stadium, that toe-tapping approval beaming big when his favorites — Dwight Yoakum and Alan Jackson — belted their hits. That smile faded some when “newbies” like Taylor Swift took the stage. And we both felt a twinge of sadness when Kenny Rogers’s grand finale performance made clear the Country legend didn’t quite “know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.” And I don’t recall getting anyone’s autograph, though I suspect we did? I’ll have to reference the contest prize box I kept all of our mementos in — festival lanyards, paper airline tickets, wristbands, programs. |  A screenshot of an email I received promoting tickets to the 2008 CMA Music Festival. Dad and I of course were going for free. But look at those prices! |
Going to Fan Fair (yes, it’ll always be “Fan Fair” to me) was a once in a lifetime experience, especially in how it all came to be. I collected and intended to keep forever every tangible scrap I could. Dad and I attended many Country performances together throughout my life, and I kept those ticket stubs too. But Fan Fair was the concert of all concerts, the over-the-top tribute to fans, like Dad and me, that couldn’t be experienced anywhere else.
And I was there. With Dad. ❤️
I found the 2008 box with an array of memorabilia (and a lot of product promos!) inside.
The Gallery
A look back at festival posters.
Before you step onto festival grounds, before you toss your hip through a turnstile or get your lanyard scanned…heck, even before you buy your tickets, you’ve seen it. In your inbox. On social media. On the ol’ boob tube.
And once inside the music event of your dreams, it’s there amping up your already fever-pitch excitement.
I’m talking about the look of a music festival — the festival artwork that appears on those lanyards, in programs, and on t-shirts. This week we zoom in on the music festival poster.
Using posters to hype festivals dates back to the late 1800s, and rose in popularity as printing technologies advanced in the early 20th century. Today they are considered essential — the headline act of a festival’s marketing campaign.
Posters lend a tangible aspect to an auditory and in-the-moment experience. They ramp up excitement ahead of a festival, establish the vibe during it, and become an enduring snapshot of its magic after. Layer on how music festivals themselves tap into, and even foster, a cultural identity, and these posters become symbolic flags of a community united beyond shared taste in music.
So, no wonder they are highly collectible. Concert memorabilia has its own category on Ebay, with music festival posters a popular find. There is huge demand for vintage and eventually-vintage posters from both festival attendees who want a keepsake and fans of poster design in general.
Combining logistical details (time, place, lineup) with artistic ones (color, shape, and typography), festival posters provide a visual story of a festival’s culture, past and present. The variety in the poster designs for any given festival reflect the variety in its performers and themes. It can indicate how much a festival has grown in stature, or stuck to its roots.
More broadly, a look through a 100+ years worth of festival posters tells you not just the evolution of the prints themselves but also the evolution of the entire music festival industry the posters represented and influenced.
A Reddit user remarked that today’s mega-concert-goers seem to be “worshipping the festival itself more than the experience to hear your preferred artist live.”
Another user countered, “What could be better than camping in a field for a few days with friends, seeing dozens of great artists perform live? Festivals are absolutely more than ‘just’ the music - it’s the time spent with your friends and the positive community of the festival. It’s very different to going to a live show.”
Just as a music festival offers more than a lineup of artists, its poster serves beyond just the design and details. It’s the backdrop of the end-to-end experience, establishing the place where you can be with your people.
Nashville’s Hatch Show Print has been creating posters for over 140 years with its unique hand-carved woodblock printing process. From the 1920s to 1950s, the shop created unforgettable images of African-American Blues and Jazz greats and Country music legends, solidifying itself as one of the poster brands. According to Bluegrass Today, “the shop has provided performers—from circuses and traveling vaudeville shows to Grand Ole Opry stars and touring rock bands— with vibrant posters to advertise their tour dates that combine color, individuality, and bold, tactile design.”
Hatch Show Print design can be found in vintage ads for products and services, but it’s best known for its music posters. Director of Hatch Show Print, Celene Aubry, notes their posters may not necessarily sell you with a catchy slogan, but they are memorable because “they are the few tangible items that you can take away from an event.”
The Ojai Valley community in California — host of the annual Ojai Music Festival since 1947 — shares the sentiment on its website.
“Music is a most evanescent art experience. What remains of these intangible moments? Sometimes a poster, ephemeral art from that year’s Festival, triggers a smile and a treasured reminiscence. Powerful posters do that well.”
Check out our Off Road section, where we share links to some impressive digital festival posters collections and ask how you feel about vintage-like reproductions.
Troves & Tales
Lilith Fair ‘99 comes to Toronto.
And the surprise guest was no “fifth wheel”.
There was no Swiftie era for me. I was a fan of certain musicians and bands, but I was never a “super fan”. The closest I probably got was my love of Sarah McLachlan.
I bought her CDs and played them on repeat as I poured over her liner notes. And I played her songs on the piano. I even got my hair cut short like hers.
So when Lilith Fair’s lineup for 1999 was announced, I knew I wanted to go. A teenager barely of driving age and too young to take the train to Toronto, I saved up my money and got two tickets – one for me and one for my chauffeur.
My mom really wanted to go with me, but my cheap seats way up high in the back of the venue were too much for her to brave. So my Dad took me to this fem-focused festival.
Lilith FairAugust 22, 1999 Molson Amphitheatre Toronto, Canada Artists included Sarah McLachlan and:
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During Crow’s set, a figure dressed all in purple holding a cool guitar entered stage right. Crow said nothing as this new musician joined in on “Everyday is a Winding Road”.
“Is that Prince?” I asked my Dad, squinting at the stage.
The crowd slowly but surely caught on: The Artist Formerly Known as Prince was on stage at Lilith Fair.
And there I was, a teenage girl at what would become an iconic summer music festival, created by women artists for fans of women artists. I was there with my dad, and I loved it.
I still have the Lilith Fair CD I bought that night.
The other highlight of the night happened long after we left the Molson Amphitheatre and got out of the city.
In the wee hours, we stopped at the now-gone Fifth Wheel 24-hour truck stop. Over plates of greasy food, Dad and I chatted about the great performances we’d just witnessed. We then hit the cool, dark road home.
Playground
Your festival treasure
Do you collect festival memorabilia?
What’s the most interesting item you’ve collected?
Do you collect because of personal significance or some other reason?
Leave a comment or reply to this email and share your story!
Off Road
This week’s finds:
Stanford Libraries has an amazing collection of artifacts from the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival, including audio clips, programs, and posters dating back to 1958.
In 2018 Live Nation offered fans their “Festival Passport”. For one season the pass got you tiered access to select concerts and festivals all over the globe. Funny to find the site still live with links to “buy”.
At Hypesheriff, you can “Give your home a vintage flair with our retro posters” that “offer a visual journey into the past, celebrating the enduring charm of retro graphic design.” It’s unclear to us whether these are reprints of original designs, but they definitely bear a nostalgic appearance. How do you feel about pseudo-vintage?
Curio Road is more fun with a friend!
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