Page 21 - BusinessWest May 26, 2020
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Better Late Than Never
SGreen River Festival Returns with a New Date and New Site
ince its inception in the late 1980s, the sorry. an extra month to get the Green River Festival Green River Festival had never been can- “It was definitely a challenge to plan on so right, even if the planning got a little thorny. celed. Until last year. many levels,” said Olsen, president of Signature “We had already booked all the musicians
And Jim Olsen wanted to give it every chance Sounds, the Northampton-based company that for July, and we had to scrap that and start over
to return in 2021, even if it meant moving the date from mid-July to Aug. 27-29 — which turned out to be unnecessary, but hey, better safe than
produces the annual festival in Greenfield. “It became apparent in January that July
wasn’t going to fly — at least, it didn’t seem that way at the time,” he
again for August,” he said — a feat in itself, since
“These musicians are dying to get back out there. They depend on being on the road.”
musicians tend to book a series of shows in suc- cession, and it’s not always easy to shift dates around.
But shift they did, and this year’s festival fea- tures about 30 bands, headlined by the likes of Jon Batiste, Shakey Graves, Ani DiFranco, Val- erie June, and Drive-By Truckers over the event’s three days. Check out greenriverfestival.com for the full lineup and plenty of other information.
Speaking of changes, the festival also had to find another venue after 33 years at Greenfield Community College, which announced earlier this year it would be closed for the summer. The
Green River
Continued on page 22
    Femi Kuti & the Positive Force entertain the crowd at the Green River Festival in 2018.
went on, a percep- tion that speaks volumes about how far the state and the nation have come with COVID-19 case rates and a mas- sive vaccination effort. At first, the move seemed pre- scient, especially after Gov. Charlie Baker announced the state would fully reopen, without gathering restric- tions, on Aug. 1.
No one knew the governor would eventually shift that date to May 29, but Olsen doesn’t mind
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