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Hartford Memorial Festival Welcomes Back Crowds Following Two-year Interruption

A two-year hiatus because of COVID-19, and a change of venue, did little to hinder the 10th Annual John Hartford Memorial Festival in Springville, Indiana.

Nearly 2,000 people—including spectators, band members, vendors and staff workers—were present at the event, held from June 1 to June 4 at the Lawrence County Recreational Park. That was down from the number for 2019 but only slightly, said event organizer Tom Burkhart.  “We were expecting that a little bit because of having to move the venue,” he said.

Before this year, the Hartford Fest was always held at the nearby Bean Blossom festival grounds. But recent lawsuits arising after the sale of the grounds made a return in 2022 impossible, Burkhart said.  Lawrence County Recreational Park proved a good alternative venue, one that was no less capable of attracting top-shelf acts. The headliners included Leftover Salmon, The Dillards, the Becky Buller Band, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades and Henhouse Prowlers. Also on the bill were up-and-coming bands such as Damn Tall Buildings, Chicago Farmer & the Fieldnotes, Stillhouse Junkies and Good Morning Bedlam. All told, 30 acts appeared. A separate band competition featured nine contestants, of which the Milwaukee-based MilBillies walked home with the top prize.

With its sprawling acreage, Lawrence County Recreational Park—nearly eight times as large as the Bean Blossom grounds—allowed the festival organizers to alternate between two full stages, having a band appear on one while the other was being made ready for the next act. Festival goers could move back and forth without having to worry about missing a particular performance. Another advantage to the festival ground’s size was that it allowed the event organizers for the first time to have separate family areas.  If there was any drawback, it was a sense that everything was too spread out. Next year the organizers might look for a ways to concentrate the camping areas, Burkhart said. 

Performers were generally impressed by the festival’s return to form after having to take two years off because of the pandemic. Phillip Steinmetz, banjoist, singer and leader of Phillip Steinmetz and his Sunny Tennesseans, said his band was among the acts looking forward to playing Hartford Fest in 2020 before the first cancellation. He said the festival scene in general has been having a slow recovery but that Hartford Fest showed few signs this year of being held back.  “There are lots of shows you try to get booked at, but they’ve got to honor the bands that were booked three years ago,” Steinmetz said. “So you have to wait a few year for them even consider you. So it’s been rough. But the crowd here—it’s a good crowd.”

The members of Stillhouse Junkies—a Durango, Colorado, band still riding high from their winning the IBMA “Momentum Band of the Year” in 2021—were equally impressed. Fred Kosak, who sings and plays guitar and mandolin in the band, said crowds seem more grateful than ever for the opportunity to see live music.   “I think after a lot of people have been sitting at home and not going to shows and not going to festivals, there is definitely an energy now that we have noticed,” Kosak said. “We’ve had a lot of people who come up to us and said: Thank you for coming out and playing.”

Shortly after their appearance at Hartford Fest, Stillhouse Junkies embarked on a short tour of the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands before returning to the U.S. for still more dates, all of it leading up to their release of a new album—Small Towns—this fall. One good aspect to being back on the road, said fiddler Alissa Wolf, is that it’s provided a chance to meet or get reacquainted with other bands. If anything, the sense of camaraderie has only been strengthened by the two-year hiatus, she said.

Avery Ballotta, fiddle player in the trio Damn Tall Buildings—a band whose name is an allusion to a John Hartford song—said the event did well by its namesake this year.  “A lot of festivals are doing great job of coming back and bringing some of that spirit back,” Ballotta said. “With the John Hartford festival, his spirit was definitely there. That’s what you want when you play a memorial festival, is that person’s energy.”

Despite the high praises, the festival wasn’t without setbacks. An accident involving a golf cart sent members of the one of the contestant bands to the hospital. This year was also the first Burkhart put on the festival without the event’s founder, John Hotze, who died in 2021. Like Hartford, Hotze grew up in St. Louis but didn’t meet Hartford until years later when they were both in Nashville.

After Hartford died, in 2001, Hotze decided to hold the annual festival in his life-long friend’s honor. Burkhart said his first go at holding the event without his former partner was bittersweet in many ways but that the turnout and performances this year would have made Hotze proud.

Steinmetz, of the Sunny Tennesseans, said he hopes the success of Hartford Fest was a harbinger of more good festivals to come.  “I think people were tired of being told that they can’t gather and do this,” he said. “And we’re tired of it too.”