Blue Ox Music Festival

Finds Success and Fills a Niche

By all measures, the Blue Ox Music Festival is a young musical gathering. Now going into its 12th year, the festival will return once again on June 25-27, at the Pines Music Park in beautiful Eau Claire, Wisconsin, located between Chippewa Falls and Osseo.

The gathering is more proof that the Telluride model of music festivals continues to work in these crazy modern times for the music business. It is what I call a ‘mixed-use festival,’ borrowing a term from the construction industry. In this case, the term refers to an event that has bluegrass music at the base of it, yet also brings in top jamgrass, roots rock, alt. country, and Americana groups to fill out the late evening slots. This formula brings in big crowds.

Blue Ox happens on the weekend after the Telluride Festival, yet it has its own groove and natural surroundings that make it unique. While the Telluride Festival limits ticket sales to about 10,000 attendees, Blue Ox, located 1,190 miles away, puts its limit at about 6,000 festival goers.

What is cool about Blue Ox is that those who run it also own the 140 acres of land where it all takes place. That means that they can arrange, rearrange, and build up the grounds as they wish and make improvements going forward. The goal here is to keep nature always in the mix and to create a great experience for those that make the trek to the Heartland.

One positive attribute of this approach is the care and effort that has been made at Blue Ox to create a family-friendly camping area, separate from other areas where the jams tend to go late into the night. There is also a big fire ring area called the Potluck Pickin’ Place that is designated as a spot where campground musicians of all levels can come together to pick some music. Hosting many of those jams is the Potluck String Band.

Along with the live music found on the main stages, there are also areas designated as the Art In The Pines zone, the Soul Sanctuary quiet wellness area, the Family Entertainment Stage, the Craft and Hardgood Vending area, a Disc Golf Course, and a place for music workshops for beginners.

That brings us to the unique story of Blue Ox involving the Bischel Family. Many years ago, patriarch Jim Bischel became one of the investors in the very successful Country Jam USA music festival. Years later, when Blue Ox was formed in 2015, the event was run out of the Country Jam offices for the first two years before it broke off and became its own entity run by Jim and his sons Mark and Tony Bischel. The Bischel family owns and operates the festival and the land that it takes place upon.

Long before the first Blue Ox Music Festival took place, Jim and Mark Bischels went to a Travelin’ McCourys show that also featured the opening act Pert Near Sandstone, a bluegrass band based in Denver. After that initial meeting, Pert Near Sandstone became the official host band of the fledgling Blue Ox Music Festival, performing on multiple nights at every gathering.

The bill of the first festival in 2015 featured groups ranging from the Del McCoury Band, the Infamous Stringdusters, Sam Bush and the Henhouse Prowlers to the Yonder Mountain String Band, Pokey Lafarge, Justin Townes Earl, and The Hobo Nephews Of Uncle Frank.

As always, with Blue Ox being tucked away in a cool part of the Upper Midwest, this celebration of music has made the effort to showcase many local and regional bands based in that region that many visitors may have never heard before.

At the time this article was written, the initial lineup of the 2026 Blue Ox Music Festival that has been announced so far includes Sierra Hull, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, I’m With Her, Charley Crockett, The Dead South, Marcus King Band, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Chicken Wire Empire, Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country, Valerie June, Shadowgrass, Dom Flemons & The Traveling Wildfires, Etran De L’aïr, Them Coulee Boys, Folk Bitch Trio, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, Silverado, The Lowest Pair, The Steel Wheels, Hogslop String Band, Wild Horses, Abby Webster, Johnny Mullenax, The Mighty Pines, Fabrizio, Maygen & The Birdwatcher, the Roe Family Singers, Art Stevenson & High Water and Molly Brandt with more artists to be named later.

As for Festival Organizer Mark Bischel, he got turned onto bluegrass and roots music due to someone he knew in his youth. “As for how I got into bluegrass, honestly, it was through a buddy of mine,” said Bischel. “When I was in my freshman year of high school, a buddy of mine’s older brother went out to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and he was a luthier. When he returned home, he brought back what I believe was that first Yonder Mountain String Band album. When I listened to that recording, it really got its hooks into me. I was just thinking about that experience recently because that was right around that same time that I started listening to Todd Snider as well, who recently passed away this past November. The Yonder Mountain String Band always played music by John Hartford, and they did some other collaborations as well, and all of that really got me into that whole world of music.”

Out of Bischel’s love for bluegrass and jamgrass music came the idea of starting Blue Ox. Eventually, his father Jim quit his day job with the family’s lumber mill, and after years of being a part of the Country Jam USA event, he was ready to do something new.

“At that point in time, my Dad was not even thinking about Blue Ox as potentially being a standalone festival,” said Bischel. “He was trying to figure out how to incorporate the two festivals together because all the infrastructure was already there. But, it eventually became the general consensus that Blue Ox would be better off as a standalone event. I also think it might have been a way of getting me to move back from Colorado to Wisconsin, too, to help him out with this new project. I saw a lot of great bands while living in Colorado, and that was something that I really enjoyed, yet I also thought that there were a lot of people in our area of Wisconsin that didn’t really have that same opportunity, as they had to travel a long ways just to see national acts alongside their local acts.”

Earlier, with Blue Ox not yet on the horizon, that is when the Bischels met the Pert Near Sandstone band at the aforementioned Travelin’ McCourys show, and a connection was forged.

The members of Pert Near Sandstone include Nate Sipe, J. Lenz, and Justin Bruhn. “We were playing with the Traveling McCourys in Denver while on a little winter run doing some ski towns,” said Nate Sipe. “After our set, we were hanging out at the merch area and I think Jay, our guitar player, was up there and he was approached by a man and his son who said, ‘We throw a country music festival up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and we’d love for you to help us try to create a bluegrass stage at the event.’ I think Jay, at the time, was a little dismissive because a lot of people talk big at a show, after a couple of drinks or whatever, yet nothing tends to come of it. But, this man turned out to be Jim Bischel and his son Mark, with Mark living in Colorado at the time. Sure enough, they were indeed a part of running Country Jam USA, and they imagined having a little bluegrass stage at the Saloon, which was built near the campground at the festival.”

In the following days, the Bischels followed up with an email exchange with the Pert Near Sandstone band’s manager, Mark Gearing, who owns Periscope Management. Later on, when the decision was made to move forward with Blue Ox, Gearing and Periscope Management were brought in to do the talent buying and booking, and Pert Near Sandstone became the event’s host band. “When we saw the venue at the Pines Music Park, we quickly realized, while looking at the grounds, that it would be the perfect spot for a bluegrass festival, with its rolling hills, with the pine tree groves filled with already built camping areas with a shower house and the Saloon, and the perfect meadow for the main stage nearby. We just fell in with these folks, and all of our visions were met, and Blue Ox was created. So, there really was a lot of serendipity involved that led to this collaboration.”

The Blue Ox Music Festival almost ended during its first year, however, as the outdoor-event-killing phenomenon known as rain made its appearance. “We were extremely happy when people began to show up that first year, but soon it was an emotional roller coaster on that inaugural weekend because we also had a lot of rain show up as well,” said Sipe. “It rained all of Saturday. When I woke up that morning to the sound of pouring rain, I thought, ‘Crap, we are done. It is Year One, and we’re done. This rain is going to just kill this festival.’ But instead, people got out there with their galoshes and raincoats and stomped in the mud and went right up to the front of the stage and watched the music all day and night. The folks at the festival threw out some straw and mitigated the water flow, and got things back to normal as much as we could get it. But mostly, it was such a testament to how the audience became a part of this event from the beginning and how the spirit of the festivarians in our area is strong. The culture of Blue Ox was built right then and there during that first year in the mud.”

Once again, that is when it comes in handy for a festival to own the grounds it takes place on. Since then, improvements have been made to Pine Music Park every year. “We have created a truly unique bond with our attendees over these last 12 years,” said Sipe. “We weathered the storm of that first year together, literally, and then by year two, we thought, OK, I think we got this. I think we can pull this off.’ And, we have done so, and it continues to grow organically through the culture of the audience, the culture of the Northwoods, by the Upper Midwestern people that we are able to draw in, and by the people who come in from larger vicinities. For those first five years or so, we were very much a local and regional thing, attended by people from Kansas, Iowa, Colorado, Michigan, and Ohio. Now, I think we’re drawing in a pretty wide national audience.”

The Bischel Family is proud of what they have created. “The Pine Music Park is a magical spot, and I feel like it lends itself to creating spaces fordifferent ages of people,” said Bischel. “We were able to really keep it comfortable and accessible for whatever way someone would like to camp. We’ve got a separate area for people with small children and families that allows them to be able to listen to the music, even if they have to hang out with the kids the whole time, without feeling like they’re missing anything. We also have the comforts of home for others, with electrical hookups and everything like that nearby. And, the live music stages are centrally located, even though the park is big. That way, people have a short little walk to get to and from the stages from everywhere they are camping or hanging out. It’s really convenient for all kinds of different people to do their thing easily, and we try to keep it that way.”

Running a festival is not easy, and that means Bischel is steadily busy once the gates open. Eventually, however, he is able to take a deep breath and enjoy a band or two as the weekend plays out. “The honest answer, for me at least, is that festival weekend feels hectic, but that’s just due to the fact that I’m in a unique position where I’m helping to facilitate the work at the gates when we’re bringing people in,” said Bischel. “When people are setting up their camp, everyone has their own needs, so I’m running around like crazy. It does surprise me, though, as far as how many people are coming out to our festival, and it’s great to get to talk to them and see where they’re from and see how far away they’ve traveled. All that is pretty special. Still, I really don’t attend the festival as much as I’m running around and trying to attend to the people’s needs at the festival. It’s great, though, to have people thanking you for doing what you’re doing, and we feel very appreciative for all of the people that are supporting this event. Usually, Saturday is about the day when I can relax a little bit and hopefully catch a few sets of music and talk to people at the festival that are doing different aspects that I may have missed seeing.”

Looking back, Bischel and crew have experienced some special musical moments at Pine Music Park with a lot more to come in the future. “Over the years, looking back, the highlights for me have definitely included seeing Billy Strings with his band during that first year that we had him here in 2017,” said Bischel. “It was the year that Billy moved down to Nashville and put together his current band. He played an 11 a.m. set to kick off the day on the main stage, believe it or not, and it was the first time seeing him with the band that he would soon make famous around the world, minus Alex Hartgreaves of course, who was not yet in the group. But hey, seeing them back then, that was a great example of what we’ve brought to the table at our festival. Bringing Del McCoury, Sam Bush, Peter Rowan, Leftover Salmon, Greensky Bluegrass, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and other great bands in has been special as well.”

The future is bright for Blue Ox. Even the title of the event is a reminder to folks of the fabled Midwestern tale of Paul Bunyan, which has faded through the years in the age of smartphones and AI.  “This festival is something that we’ve been able to put our fingerprints on,” said Bischel. “It has been about celebrating a lot of the music and the artists that I have grown up enjoying watching and seeing. This festival allows us to bring those bands to this beautiful part of the country that I’ve grown up in. This is my home area, and I get to celebrate these artists and see how the community here in the Upper Midwest and beyond have embraced it all. It’s a great thing to be a part of, and I’m really proud of it.”

Press and Media Director, Karen Wells Verlander added, “Since its meager beginnings, we are a small, close knit dedicated team who have passionately worked to build the festival to what it is today. All of us have been there for over 10 years.”

More information can be found at www.blueoxmusicfestival.com.