Festival to promote conscious living and environmentalism

VERNON — A three day outdoor music and arts festival that emphasizes conscious living and environmentalism is coming to Vernon.

The second annual Farm Fest will be held from July 24 to 26 at Rickey Farm in Vernon. It features jam bands, new age music, live painters, yoga/meditation workshops, art installations and food/craft vendors.

Getting started
The event started small a few years ago and has grown from there, according to co-founder Timothy O'Hearen.

"It was just a local gathering that was basically in a backyard," O'Hearen said. "The founder, my partner Pat grew up on a farm so he had this passion for agriculture and just a passion for the environment in general."

Through the years Farm Fest grew and it has been official for two years now.

"It is about the future of artists and minds," O'Hearen said. "It goes beyond local agriculture to just promote positive ideas through music and art and just a creative culture."

This year the festival is bringing workshops about such things as fracking.

By bringing the festival to a more commercial audience, organizers hope to accomplish a few things.

"We have a broader vision about environmental positivity, especially in a time where music culture is counterproductive," O'Hearen said. "It is all about partying and not much good. We want to spread the message that people can come and have an awesome music event that incorporates all these other elements. It is an awesome progression of our generation beyond the music today like EDM."

Growing larger
As it has grown, more groups have wanted to get involved.

"There have been a few that saw last year's event and saw the potential so they wanted to get involved," said O'Hearen. "It created a domino effect with all sorts of environmental groups and yoga and just a broad spectrum of creative types wanting to get involved."

O'Hearen thinks that the festival will continue to grow.

"It is definitely an annual event and our intention is for it to be bigger and better for years to come," he said. "There have been events like this that have gained traction on the west coast over the last decade, events that have drawn 10, 20, even 30 thousand people and there is not even much of a culture for this anywhere on the east coast so our mission is to grow this festival paradigm for farm fest for future years. We also do other events throughout the year that are much smaller in New York City and Philly and throughout New Jersey."

What to expect
"A lot more than what you would expect to get from a regular concert," O'Hearen said. "It is an immersive creative experience with positive overall productive intentions. The experience we created is one where everyone can get something positive no matter why you came. If you want to do one thing that's great and then maybe you will attend a workshop and get excited about that."

Headlining performers include Papadosio, EOTO (ft. members of String Cheese Incident), Liquid Stranger, Phutureprimitive, Random Rab, Govinda, Bluetech, Desert Dwellers, Thriftworks, Cosby Sweater (ft. Joel Cummins of Umphrey's Mcgee), Moon Hooch and more.

There are a limited number of $105 tickets available. Once they sell out, the price will increase to $135. This is an all ages event, though anyone under 17 must be accompanied by an adult.