The short:
As we enter our 5th year hosting this event, it is clear that The Colorado Acoustic Summit is unlike any other night of music in Colorado. It is a single-night showcase of the best in Colorado's Acoustic Music scene. We bring ten bands to McAwesome Ranch in Castle Rock, and each band showcases three of their favorite songs in the traditional single-mic performance style. The ranch provides an intimate, community focused venue where attendees get to listen close, meet the artists, and listen to bands try out new ideas in front of friends and fellow musicians. We provide merch, food, drinks, camping on the hill, and an end-of-festy season celebration through the night. This festival is by musicians and for musicians, and we are inviting you to witness the magic with us.
The full story:
In March of 2020, as COVID circled the globe, the Colorado Acoustic music scene looked on in disbelief as our industry came to a sudden halt. What was only weeks before a year full of gigs, festivals, house concerts, and rehersals became a collective blank calendar, and we scrambled to figure out how to make a living doing what we loved in the face of this unprecedented adversity.
Festivals are the meeting grounds for the acoustic music scene. It is where we go to check in on each other, share new music, and participate in the joy of this musical life that we have chosen. All major festivals in Colorado were cancelled in 2020, and the void that stood in their wake was large. We tried songwriting sessions on zoom, meeting distantly in the park, and countless other means of continuing our collective musical vision, but nothing replaced the feeling of standing around a campground as music filled the air.
On a bike ride in the summer of 2020 with my dear friend Joe, we jokingly formed the idea of a DIY festival called "RockyGronk". We asked, "What if we figured out a way to throw a small, socially distanced festival?" The next day, I called my friend Matt, who owns and operates McAwesome Ranch in Castle Rock, and he offered us his Ranch to use as a gathering space.
And so the secret festival called RockyGronk was born. I invited 13 local bands - all dear friends - and on a cool September night in 2020, we all descended upon the ranch in adherence with all of the local guidelines. The format was simple - each band would play three songs, and then we would camp at the ranch and jam through the night.
It is hard to describe the feeling of that night, because it was such a unique moment in time, but the collective sense among the 50 attendees was that it was a respite from a year mired in difficulty and unknown. For that one night, we reformed the community that was at the heart of why we play acoustic music, and for those 12 hours, everything felt right again before the long haul of a coming winter devoid of performance and collaboration.
We decided to run this experiment again the following year in 2021, and then again in 2022 and 2023, and each RockyGronk since the original has retained the same idea that launched the first event: that community is important to the health of a musical life.
As we enter 2024, we want you to join us. We have changed the name to reflect the larger vision for this night of music, and we need help as we seek to establish it as a fixture of the Colorado Acoustic music scene.
The Colorado Acoustic Summit meets on September ____, and you are invited. Tell a friend, share the posts, and help us create a space where music and community combine to create an annual night that is unlike any other in the history of Colorado music.