Collegiate Times

Railroad Earth performs to a sold-out crowd on the Dreamin' Creek Main Stage at Floydfest X, which took place July 27-31.

Although FloydFest attendees had to brave high temperatures, drenching rains, and cramped camping quarters, the 10th annual festival left all with good feelings and hopefulness for years to come.

This year the festival sold out to its capacity of 14,000 people — including artists, staff members and vendors as well as ticket-holders — for Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with only a few day tickets left for Sunday. This was the first year that the festival was at such high capacity.

Although some people might have felt a little close to their neighbors, festival spokeswoman and co-organizer Linda DeVito said she hadn’t heard complaints, although she said there were “some growing pains this year” with so many attendees. But she doesn’t think that the festival’s size this year would deter people from coming back.

“Logistically, we have some challenges in front of us. But we have always faced each year’s challenges with a committed effort to come up with solutions and provide for our attendees the best possible festival ever,” she said.

“We truly believe that quality is worth more than quantity,” DeVito said. “We want to make sure that our festival patrons want to come back. At this point, 67 percent of our attendees are returning customers. Any business that has that kind of success rate will continue to thrive.”

Even with so many attendees and varying weather conditions — with temperatures in the 90s on Friday and Saturday and a cold rain drenching everything on Sunday — medical worker David Lander said he didn’t see many issues.

Lander said his team dealt mainly with minor issues like cuts, scrapes, splinters, and a few broken fingers and toes. But he said one of his biggest compliments to the festival is the fact that in its 10-year history, there has never been a case of interpersonal violence.

“It’s a pretty mellow group,” he said.

Lander said the worst injury his team treated this weekend was a person who got burned by a flamethrower that is part of Davina the Dragon, a dragon made of metal and an old station wagon, that was a common sight near the Global Village stage.

“I don’t think it was the fault of anyone,” Lander said. “The person who got burned was a little bit of a discombobulated person, let’s put it that way.”

The festival takes place every summer on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Patrick County, about six miles from the town of Floyd. It attracts mainly Americana acts, but there is certainly musical variety, with girl rocker Grace Potter and the Nocturnals being one of this year’s headliners. The outdoorsiness of the festival attracts many artists. Brian J, the lead singer of the group The Pimps of Joytime, said his band loves attending the festival.

“I like this festival because I like the surroundings,” he said. “It’s really beautiful here. We do a lot of festivals and they’re not all like this. It’s great with the trees and fresh air. The vibe is positive and people have a lot of energy.”

One of the biggest differences between FloydFest and other summer music festivals is the notable lack of electronic music.

Papadosio, a band from Asheville, N.C. that frequents venues around the New River Valley area, played at their second FloydFest this year.

“It’s amazing, we love this festival. It’s seriously probably the best vibe we’ve been to this year,” said band member and drummer Mike Healy. “It’s a family atmosphere, not a lot of people doing crazy drugs. ... It’s just really loving and friendly.” 

As Healy mentioned, another characteristic of the festival is that it is family-friendly. Many summer music festivals are not as open to small children.

There were many families in attendance this year, with special family and quiet camping areas designated for those who didn’t want their neighbors keeping them up until the early morning.

There is even a whole area of the festival with a playground, sandbox, and craft stations called the Children’s Universe. It’s gated and geared specifically toward families.

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A version of this article appeared in the Aug 4 issue of the Collegiate Times.