Sierra Nevada World Music Festival @ Boonville

[Drunk Monk]

CANCELLATION NOTICE With very a heavy heart, SNWMF BNVL LLC must announce the cancellation of Sierra Nevada World Music Festival 2024, June 21-23, at the Mendocino County
Fairgrounds, Boonville, CA. Last year, the SNWMF team beautifully and successfully revitalized the festival after a 5 year hiatus. We planned and have been diligently working towards presenting another magical weekend this year. This has become increasingly
difficult due to extreme financial challenges. We have tirelessly explored and exhausted all options. We cannot proceed knowing
we are unable to deliver the usual high quality event you deserve.
Please give us a little time to sort this. We cannot apologize enough for this turn of events and the late notice. We have worked very hard to avoid a cancellation but must face the harsh economic realities. SNWMF cannot express enough our gratitude and love to everyone who
has supported SNWMF over the past 30 years.
With regret, love and respect,
Gretchen Franz Smith for
SNWMF BNVL LLC

I’m heartbroken. This was one of my favorite festivals and I cannot see how they could possibly recover from this.

[Greg]

After seeing your cryptic note yesterday, I went to their site and it seemed to still be business as usual.

Yikes.

[Drunk Monk]

I've seen my share of cancelled festivals but never one cancelled 5 days before showtime. 

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival canceled
Organizers cite low ticket sales and “financial challenges” for pulling the plug.|[/url]

[url=https://www.pressdemocrat.com/dan-taylor/]DAN TAYLOR
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
June 17, 2024, 11:25AM
 
Updated 1 hour ago
The Sierra Nevada World Music Festival, scheduled to run Friday through Sunday at the Mendocino County Fairgrounds in Boonville, has been canceled due to low ticket sales and “extreme financial challenges,” according to the event’s web site.
Festival organizers stated online that they will do everything possible to issue refunds, and will keep ticket buyers informed through newsletters and social media posts.
Festival founder Warren Smith died on Jan. 11, 2021. His widow, Gretchen Franz Smith, strove to continue the event.
Established in 1994, the festival ran annually until 2019. The event returned last year after a five-year hiatus. This year’s gathering had been scheduled to present 35 acts over three days.

So far this year - Skulls & Roses, Lucidity, SNWMF, and I hear High Sierra (which I've never attended) is on its last legs. Canaries in the coal mine?

[King Bob]

Let's blame Live Nation and Ticketmaster. They need more bad press.

[Drunk Monk]

In Gretchen's email to staff (this came out before the general announcement) she said 'SNWMF was never a business to us.' To me, that's where the problem lies. I would love to blame the ticket monopolies, but tickets weren't distributed from there. SNWMF did it independantly. 

We just got a call from her apologizing. She said they didn't get a bridge loan they were counting on.

[Drunk Monk]

DJ Tiffany is playing a tribute show on her KZSC Joy in the Morning show, which I enjoy except it's always interrupted by YMAA telemeets. 

I'm wearing my earliest SNWMF shirt today. Earliest I could find (2003). I think I have an earlier one or two but I couldn't find them.

[Drunk Monk]

Asked my friend DJ Kai Dragon to play Survivor for all us SNWMF refugees on his Have a Nice Day! on KZSC. Not sure if he's live in the studio today or not though.

[Drunk Monk]

Have a Nice Day!
9:00 AM  – 12:00 PM 
With DJ Kai Dragon

11:09 AM
Bob Marley & The Wailers Survival Bob Marley
from Bob Marley Legacy: Righteousness

[Drunk Monk]

Copeland Forbes Bemoans Cancellation Of Reggae Shows Globally
BY KEDIESHA PERRYTHU, JUNE 20 2024, 04:01 PM EST
[/url]   [url=https://share.flipboard.com/bookmarklet/popout?v=2&url=https://www.dancehallmag.com/2024/06/20/news/copeland-forbes-bemoans-cancellation-of-reggae-shows-globally.html]

Reggae singer Protoje performs to thouands at the 2023 Sierra Nevada World Music Festival in Boonville. (Lee Abel/SNWMF)

Artist manager, author and music historian Copeland Forbes is lamenting a slew of cancellations of major Reggae festivals around the world.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Forbes raised concerns that the cancellations of the usually well-attended festivals are also ironically occurring in Jamaica. 
“Reggae concerts and festivals are cancelled all over the place even in the country of birth Jamaica. After a failed and flopped return of the one time great Sachie (Sashi) concert in Jamaica with the no-show of two major artists in the likes of Keyshia Cole and Busta Rhymes,” the post began.
He went on to list the stoppage of other popular concerts across the island, and the world—likening it to a domino effect. “Then, a little over two weeks another proposed festival, ‘Reggae Jam,’ a stapled event in Europe for many years, cancelled three days before the scheduled opening date, June 14, 2024, of its first staging in Trelawny, Jamaica.”
On June 12, Reggae Jam organizers announced that the event had been postponed to December 2024 due to “inclement weather conditions at the park,” according to Reggaeville.
“Less than a week after the cancellation of ‘Reggae Jam’ in Trelawny, Jamaica, another great Reggae festival ‘Sierra Nevada World Music festival,’ a festival concept created by my good friend the late Warren Smith announced cancellation due to low pre-sold ticket sales for a June 21 start of a 3 day event with one of the strongest lineups.”
Forbes continued, “One day after the cancellation of SNWMF in California another Reggae/Dancehall proposed concert in Miami Florida titled ‘Reggae Lovefest’ scheduled for June 22, 2024 with headliners Shabba Ranks, Super Cat, Elephant Man, Capleton, Patra, Spice, among others announced cancellation also.”
According to checks made by DancehallMag, The Sierra Nevada World Music festival was canceled “due to extreme financial challenges,” the Medocino Voice reported, while the Reggae Lovefest, scheduled for June 22, has been postponed to February 15, 2024.
Forbes also revealed that he heard that the Overjam Festival in Slovenia and the Sundance Festival were also put off. 
Admittedly, he noted that Buju Banton’s “Long Walk To Freedom New York” concert looks to be the only one promising this year. At the end of May, Buju added a second date to the tour due to high demand. The second show will be held on Sunday, July 14, just one day after the originally scheduled July 13 performance.
Reggae and Dancehall lovers can also look forward to Reggae Sumfest in Montego Bay, St. James, with the two-day festival spanning July 19-20.

Didn't know about the other festival cancellations. I do know about the cancellation of Lucidity next weekend.

[Drunk Monk]

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival cancellation leaves refund status unclear
By Aidin Vaziri, Staff WriterJune 25, 2024
[/url][url=https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfchronicle.com%2Fentertainment%2Farticle%2Fsierra-nevada-festival-refunds-19540003.php%3Futm_campaign%3DCMS%2520Sharing%2520Tools%2520(Premium)%26utm_source%3Dt.co%26utm_medium%3Dreferral&text=Sierra%20Nevada%20World%20Music%20Festival%20cancellation%20leaves%20refund%20status%20unclear&via=sfchronicle]


The reggae act Steel Pulse was scheduled to perform at the 2024 Sierra Nevada World Music Festival, which was canceled at the last minute.
Scott Dudelson/Getty Images
The Sierra Nevada World Music Festival, scheduled to take place last weekend at the Mendocino County Fairgrounds in Boonville, was canceled at the last minute due to “extreme financial challenges.” But the status of refunds for ticket holders remains murky.
Organizers announced the cancellation of the three-day outdoor festival on June 16, just days before it was supposed to feature reggae and world music acts such as Busy Signal, Koffee, Steel Pulse, Third World and Barrington Levy.
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Gretchen Franz Smith, the event promoter, announced on social media and the festival website that the event, set for Friday-Sunday, June 21-23. was canceled due to poor ticket sales and other economic challenges.
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“Last year, the SNWMF team beautifully and successfully revitalized the festival after a five-year hiatus,” Franz Smith wrote. “We planned and have been diligently working towards presenting another magical weekend this year. … We have tirelessly explored and exhausted all options. We cannot proceed knowing we are unable to deliver the usual high quality event you deserve.”
Franz Smith co-founded the festival in 1994 in Roseville (Placer County) with her husband, promoter Warren Smith, who died in 2021. This year would have marked the 30th anniversary of the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival, which has attracted thousands of music lovers to the woods for an immersive experience including camping, dance workshops and kids activities.
“We cannot apologize enough for this turn of events and the late notice,” Franz Smith continued in her statement. “We have worked very hard to avoid a cancellation but must face the harsh economic realities. SNWMF cannot express our gratitude and love to everyone who has supported SNWMF for the past 30 years.”
According to a social media post from the organizers, all ticket holders will receive a full refund, though the festival website did not specify when. 
“Please give us some time to sort this,” the message said, promising to update ticket buyers “soon” about the refund process. 
The organizers did not immediately respond to requests for clarification.
The cancellation is part of a broader trend. In April, the sixth annual Skull & Roses Grateful Dead tribute concert in Ventura County was canceled about 10 days before it was set to start due to a lack of funds, with organizers announcing that ticket holders should not expect a refund. The same month, the Sol Blume Festival in Sacramento, headlined by SZA, was scrapped two weeks before its start due to safety concerns following heavy rain and flooding earlier this year.
Meanwhile, the U.K.’s Association of Independent Festivals reported this week that the number of music festivals canceled, postponed, or closed for good this year has risen to 50, citing “pressures of unpredictable and rising costs.”