Pickathon Music Festival: An Immersive Experience for Nature and Music Lovers

Apr 24

Enjoyable for everyone and exclusive to no one, an Oregon-based Indie music festival, Pickathon, is the heart of the what all festivals strive to be. It is fueled by a shared love of music and a space for belonging. They don’t only practice what they preach, they have truly embodied it to the core of every single year that has been live-streaming music from the woods of Oregon to the rest of the world. Music lovers have one thing in common: we find peace in being transported into a different world. Music can be a friend, a distraction, an immersion, a necessary backdrop to moving through everyday life. It’s connected to moments and memories. More often than not, these moments create emotional connections to certain songs and artists that accompany different periods of our lives. For Pickathon, those moments take place in one of the many “neighborhoods” that the 80-acre festival grounds build from scratch every year before they are met with the artists and production that brings them to life. Hand-built and hand-designed by a team of workers and volunteers that get together in the late weeks of July under the blazing Oregon summer sun, it is one of the few times of the year for us Pacific Northwesterners where we are met with golden days that extend deep into night. The sun kisses our skin as we flock to absorb every second of it before we fall into the deep, long, slumber of our 9-month rain season. Our summer burns bright and our fall dawns without warning. The feeling is reminiscent of native midwesterner up-and-coming pop artist, Chappell Roan, in her song California “Come get me out of California/No leaves are brown/I miss the seasons in Missouri/My dying town,” wherein Oregon is the brown leaves and dying town. So much so, that for one small fraction of time in the first weeks of August before fall creeps in, Pickathon comes to life. Roaring with energy, celebrating our summer solace and welcoming the beginnings of fall. Oregon is the opposite of dying during the time of year that Pickathon is hosted. That is when Oregon becomes alive.

The grounds are rife with recycled cedar wood. The tree splints cut through calloused hands and embed themselves in stage crew’s skin as the hard workers create massive, captivating structures from scratch. That’s the magic behind Pickathon: it’s all intentionally created in tandem with nature. When this festival says that they are an experiential immersive experience, they mean it. Featuring every genre of music from indie, rock, rap, folk, jazz, rhythm and blues, to bluegrass, there are a few rules that go without saying when attending and creating the magic that is Pickathon, hosted at the family-run Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, OR: bring good vibes, hold onto your collectable stainless-steel cup for the duration of the four-day festival, and embrace discovering new music.

Pickathon is known for celebrating artists with long-standing success, as well as those who are about to breakthrough. Khruangbin, an American musical trio from Houston, is one of those groundbreaking success stories that breached mainstream popularity after their Pickathon feature in 2019. A handful of notable recognizable artists that graced Pickathon grounds before appealing to the rest of the masses are Tyler Childers, Shakey Graves, Sturgill Simpson, Leon Bridges, Phil Lesh, Watchhouse, Goth Boy, Dehd, Nathaniel Rateliff, Big Thief, and Wet Leg. Do your research about past line-ups. You wont be disappointed.

As far as 2023 goes, the lineup was a year for the books. Lee Fields, an old-school soul-and-blues singer, had each and every person in attendance captivated by his sultry voice and fog-machine powered production. The Mountain Grass Unit, a small bluegrass band started in college by three Birmingham pickers, had the Galaxy Barn wishing everyone was in overalls and cowboy hats. I may have been guilty of rushing back to my tent to put on a pair of stompers for this one. Watchhouse, Americana folk duo based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, also a married couple, had every single person in the audience grabbing for their other half. The crowd swayed in place humming along for the duration of the entire set, eyes closed in pure bliss. Although Andrew Marlin (co-singer of the husband-and-wife duo) had unfortunately lost his voice for the set, Emily Frantz did fall short in captivating the crowd with her soft angelic sound. W.I.T.C.H., a Zamrock band founded in the 70’s in Zambia, took us along for a spiritual journey as they spent just as much time engaging with the audience and spreading poetic messages as they did playing their high-energy tunes. Dehd, an indie-rock band based out of Chicago, attracted rowdy teenagers and young adults to bop along to their easily catchy tunes, playing keyboard and guitar under the stars and neon lights that lit up hundreds of trees encapsulating the Woods stage. Ocie Elliott, a folk-duo also gracing the Woods stage, provided some contrast as a prelude to Dehd for an enchanting sunset set. The boyfriend-girlfriend duo’s angelic notes fluttered through the crowd that was sprawled across the forest floor on blankets. Each person respecting the art of the appreciation for an acoustic romance-filled set and their impeccable voices. It was a set for lovers; those in love, those yearning for love, and those on their journeys of self-love.

The diversity behind the lineup is what makes Pickathon and its attending artists so unique and special, and it’s reflected just as much in the music as it is in the festival attendees. From two-year-olds, elderly couples, swarms of teenagers leaving home for the first time, to young adults reliving college days on the farm grounds, there is a space and place for everyone at Pickathon.

With Pickathon being so intertwined with the earth it cannot operate without directly serving the environment and space that creates the magic. This is the basis of the festival. It was the first ever fest to eliminate plastic tablewares, and still practices that through offering reusable sporks and plates for food purchases on festival grounds. The iconic cup, complete with a carabiner, becomes an extension of festival-goers as it is repeatedly filled, rinsed, and repeated with endless beverage options: craft beer, coffee, free water from the many drinking stations, or apple juice for the handful of kids that attend the family-friendly festival with their parents. This is the only festival i’ve ever been to that doesn’t only preach community collective but actively practices it. You cannot walk from one stage to another without passing a slew of child artists perched up on their towels alongside the walkway, bartering their one dollar hand-made rubber bracelets, crystal necklaces, or face bandanas to help withstand the dust that kicks up as the days go on. This festival encourages creativity, allows kids to be kids, and warms the hearts of every passing adult that is reminded of their lemonade stands from childhood. The grounds create a sort of free market feel, with many of the guests sharing food, beverages, and art between themselves.

When you’re tired from a long day of stage-hopping, bartering, and beer-drinking? Return to solace on a short five to ten minute walk to your campsite, free with any pass purchase. Interwoven through the trees of Pendarvis farm, volunteers work tirelessly to clear weeds and ivy out of the way to create an endless stream of camping spots for festival-goers. If being that intertwined with nature isn’t your flavor, there is a free shuttle service to take you to-and-from the parking lots. However, and I say this with full certainty, you are missing out on the entire experience if you don’t choose to be lulled to sleep at night by the distant noise of electric guitar cutting through the fairy-light lit trees, an experience that I can only describe as being submerged into Alice and Wonderland. A true wonderland of its own, and a perfect place to engage in any party favors of choice, the pine-tree scented air is complimented by the smell of camp-site meals, hippies flowing to binaural beats fueled by mushrooms and cannabis, and smiling faces dusted with dirt. If you come without a community of your own, it goes without a doubt that you will find one waiting for you there. “This is my family,” one volunteer said in response to me asking if she was here with anyone. “The rest of the year is nice, life goes on, but my life is here. This is home to me,” said the seasonal manager, who also happened to be my manager as a production volunteer. We chatted as she directed me to crawl under each stage and assemble wiring for cables that would cast the livestream to thousands of worldwide viewers and become a part of the archive in the notable and celebrated Pickathon video vault.

As the days drew on, I understood what she meant. Pickathon is more than a festival for music lovers, it’s a festival for the collective. It’s run by humans for humans. Humans with the biggest hearts I’ve ever had the pleasure of being around, being completely infatuated by not only the music but the community that celebrates it so deeply. There wasn’t a single soul in attendance that wasn’t truly stoked to be there, and that collaborative buzz was felt at every single stage and every single walkway bridging the various woods and artists. Every fleeting moment was filled with laughter, greeting strangers, sweat-drenched dancing, and walking past the endless array of strictly-vinyl DJs playing tunes to fill any gaps of silence. Behind the sweaty dancing was some science; each stage had a lineup created to be a sundial, meaning not a single artist was playing under the peak burning heat of the day, with each set flowing along with the sun drifting through the sky. The Galaxy Barn transformed an old-school farmhouse into a roaring stage featuring everything from metal-heavy artists to calmer bluegrass groups. The Woods stage, my personal favorite, was cast a bit farther away than the others and was well worth the walk. The secluded stage put audience members into an immediate trance-like state after passing through the communal yoga and wellness based Refuge center to access the Woods stage. The sweet smell of Patchouli, faint smell of cannabis joints, and grill smoke roaring from the tacos booth at the neck of the Woods entry graced the air and set the mood. It was everything everywhere all at once; enchanting, calming, inspiring, and energizing. The Paddock stage, the “main stage” set in (you guessed it!) a massive horse paddock, featured the majority of the headliners for the festival with ample space for the crowd to be mesmerized by the music. This is the heart of Pickathon, utilizing the spaces that nature already gifts us and incorporating our musical nurture.

Every stage was created hand-crafted to the highest standard, every vendor hand-selected to compliment the arts and fine dining experience, and every artist featured on the vast lineup proved to be such a powerhouse, that Pickathon was pleased to announce just a few months ago in early 2024 that their license that was facing expiration from Happy Valley, OR, was renewed for another decade. Pickathon does it like no one else, and is a blueprint for future generations and festivals to come. Ten more years of dancing under the stars, the sun, and actively contributing to saving the earth and preserving the core of music and connection.