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Okay, so Norman, OK, is a smallish college town with a dusting of residual hippie, surrounded by red state. As such, we do a lot of free festivals. There is... Jazz in June, Medieval Fair, A Midsummer Night's Fair, Chocolate Festival, Mayfest.... On any given spring/summer weekend, someone somewhere is operating a craft booth for some reason.
These things tend to attract a broad spectrum of over-30 Norman. They are generally sponsored by wealthy donors, so you get the gentry with the deck chairs and coolers of chilled Zinfandel. And they're free, so you get everybody else. And people bring their kids to hurtle around throwing glowsticks at each other; and people bring their dogs because that's this inexplicable thing Norman people do, bring their dogs to everything. I'm not a particular fan of jazz, but I drop by Jazz in June most years, just to sit under the stars with 9,000 other people and listen to music and occasionally throw a kid back their glowstick.
So. Two years ago, they announced the new Norman Music Festival, a free street festival in the old downtown section. And the usual crowd turned up with their khaki shorts and coolers, and were met by a giant mass of college kids, who had heard on their Myspace and whatnot that the Polyphonic Spree were going to be there. There were some minor culture-clash friction burns, but on the whole it went really, really well. I did a livejournal.) Then the next year, attendance doubled, Of Montreal was the headliner, and the crowd was almost all college kids.
This year, they're expanding attendance to triple; they've expanded to two days; the Governor proclaimed Sunday Norman Music Festival day; they seem to have invited the entire instrument-playing population of Oklahoma and Texas... and I've never heard of any of the non-local bands, shh. They generally seem to be making an effort to get the past-30 crowd back, without sacrificing the hipness, but we have a children's stage, but we have a lot of fresh edgy sound that you haven't heard of, so... should be an interesting thing to observe. It's a sort of incredibly laid-back, low-stakes battle for the soul of... the festival or Norman or something. Dogs will be allowed until 6:00 PM Sunday.
These things tend to attract a broad spectrum of over-30 Norman. They are generally sponsored by wealthy donors, so you get the gentry with the deck chairs and coolers of chilled Zinfandel. And they're free, so you get everybody else. And people bring their kids to hurtle around throwing glowsticks at each other; and people bring their dogs because that's this inexplicable thing Norman people do, bring their dogs to everything. I'm not a particular fan of jazz, but I drop by Jazz in June most years, just to sit under the stars with 9,000 other people and listen to music and occasionally throw a kid back their glowstick.
So. Two years ago, they announced the new Norman Music Festival, a free street festival in the old downtown section. And the usual crowd turned up with their khaki shorts and coolers, and were met by a giant mass of college kids, who had heard on their Myspace and whatnot that the Polyphonic Spree were going to be there. There were some minor culture-clash friction burns, but on the whole it went really, really well. I did a livejournal.) Then the next year, attendance doubled, Of Montreal was the headliner, and the crowd was almost all college kids.
This year, they're expanding attendance to triple; they've expanded to two days; the Governor proclaimed Sunday Norman Music Festival day; they seem to have invited the entire instrument-playing population of Oklahoma and Texas... and I've never heard of any of the non-local bands, shh. They generally seem to be making an effort to get the past-30 crowd back, without sacrificing the hipness, but we have a children's stage, but we have a lot of fresh edgy sound that you haven't heard of, so... should be an interesting thing to observe. It's a sort of incredibly laid-back, low-stakes battle for the soul of... the festival or Norman or something. Dogs will be allowed until 6:00 PM Sunday.
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