At the start of last school year I embarked on a goal of organizing and curating a local music festival, emphasizing local artists who wouldn’t normally have an opportunity to perform. I was able to formulate my idea into a full-blown project through a class called Innovation Lab offered at my high school. Innovation Lab studies the foundations of entrepreneurship and lets learners explore their passions through intrinsically-motivated projects. I knew I wanted to pursue this idea early on in the school year and thus heavily researched how to create a music festival. After reading articles upon articles about the subject of music festivals I knew a team of driven, passionate individuals would be necessary for my idea to succeed..
After introducing and presenting the festival idea to my peers, I formed a team of six students, all with their own unique skill-sets, to help the project come to fruition. We officially started working on the festival in late October. Through my leadership and the teams’ hard-work, we began to gain traction fast.
By the end of our first month we had chosen a name; Stomping Grounds, meant to highlight the festival’s focus on local artists and community. Five artists, of the seven we had hoped to line up, committed to the gig immediately. One of our team members, employed at a local music shop, was able to get a meeting scheduled with his employer, and through this meeting, we successfully secured a partnership whereby they would supply all the necessary audio equipment. And lastly, our marketing manager had successfully set up our social media. At this point however, we were struggling to find a location and funding for the event. Luckily, to my surprise, I discovered that a college in our area, Ursinus, was planning a music festival of their own. I immediately gathered my team and wrote an email to the director of Ursinus’s event. I explained our plans and outlined our idea and our mission. I asked if they might be interested in meeting with us to talk about how our ideas might align.
To my excitement, they agreed. My team and I went into the meeting knowing we would have to sell our idea as one of a kind. Going into the discussion we were confident and when it was over, I still was, even though they didn’t give us a clear answer. They told us they’d let us know. Then came the silence.
After an entire month of trying to contact them, nothing. I assumed that my dream was over and was close to giving up, due to the lack of funding. However, I chose to remain optimistic; brainstorming with my team how to pivot from the festival aspect.
Then, on December 19th, I received a call from the director of Ursinus’ Music on Main. Our patience and persistence paid off, they had agreed to partner with us for the event. They had agreed to not only give us our own stage to curate and organize, but also provide the funding. I was ecstatic for their support.
January and February were spent confirming all the artists we had previously contacted, creating a larger social media presence, and contacting vendors to set up at our stage. Before lockdown was imposed we were gaining a healthy social media presence, had just begun to hang up our customized posters, and had secured all our artists, consisting of four rappers, a heavy metal band, and an alt-rock band. Out of all six acts, four of them were high school students, the other two being in college. This is something I was immensely proud of, being able to obtain six very talented acts all being young and up-and-coming artists. However the world had a different plan for Stomping Grounds then I envisioned. When COVID-19 hit, Stomping Grounds was postponed and all of our progress was immediately reset and cancelled.
My time as leader of Stomping Grounds has taught me to never stop pursuing my dreams, even in a time of anguish and uncertainty. When Ursinus wasn’t responding to me, I made sure we, as a group, didn’t stop reaching out to potential artists and posting on social media. Most importantly, I inspired them to continue to fulfill our purpose and mission and consider alternative possibilities. It was the most I’ve ever learned about myself as a person and that is a main part of why I find it so easy to write about the experience. Now, months after the cancellation of my creation, I still cannot wait to continue the Stomping Grounds journey into the future!