By Briana Harris
April in Fort Collins brings one of Northern Colorado’s most beloved music traditions: thousands of music fans flowing in and out of Old Town venues, musicians hugging on the street as they hustle to a set, and unexpected shows happening from 11am to 1am. It’s FoCoMX: the Fort Collins Music Experiment. Headed into year 17, the annual music festival has gained a reputation for prioritizing music discovery, with grassroots community at the heart of festival history and operations.
Poster artwork by Chris Shaw
FoCoMX was born from the efforts of local musicians to build a better music scene. Festival co-founder Greta Cornett recounts the state of the Fort Collins music scene in the early 2000s, when she was performing and touring with ska band 12 Cents for Marvin. “There was a period of time in Fort Collins music history when a ton of our local venues shut down,” Cornett shares. With a gap in the market to serve local bands, Cornett began booking local acts at Road 34, a bicycle shop and bar.
“A lot of our local scenes started coming to Road 34 all the time for music, and organically we all started talking about the challenges we were facing,” says Cornett. The bar became the unofficial meeting site for what would eventually be the Fort Collins Musicians Association, a grassroots organization formed to uplift the local music scene. “In those early meetings we didn’t know we were going to be a nonprofit, but we started doing outreach in the community. Some of that looked like education panels, some of it looked like new talent showcases. It just looked like a whole bunch of people that cared about the local music scene.”
Photo by Backstage Flash
The organization hosted their first official event in 2008, the FoCoMA Peer Awards, inspired by the Westword Music Awards in Denver. From that grew a spark to launch a hyper-local music festival, and the first year of FoCoMX was born in 2009. “We put our own money into the festival, and we even printed our own tickets,” recounts Cornett. “We went to Office Max and bought matching neon wristbands and paper, and we handmade every single ticket. We called it musician arts and crafts. I think every band in town helped us make those tickets that first year.”
The inaugural festival hosted 114 bands across 12 venues, and it sold a couple thousand tickets. Since then, the organization has continued to grow, pivot, and constantly evolve. The inclusion of “experiment” in the festival name was a harbinger for the fest’s unique positioning centered on local music discovery. “We never forget to try new things,” says Cornett. “I think about that every year when we’re booking it and somebody’s like, ‘Hey, should we try this?’ Why not?”
Photo by Backstage Flash
Several features distinguish FoCoMX from the often crowded Colorado music festival landscape. “One of the biggest intentions we set from year one is it’s a festival for musicians, by musicians,” states Cornett. The festival prioritizes connection between musicians across genres and generations, from the strategy used to curate lineups to the green room amenities. “There’s a networking that can happen in a really comfortable way that doesn’t happen for musicians year-round,” shares Peggy Lyle, Executive Director of FoCoMA. “We can have all of the musicians together. They can catch each others’ sets. They can find new bandmates. Everyone is here because they want to be here.” The festival also exclusively features acts based in or with ties to the Colorado music scene.
The FoCoMX lineup philosophy centers around presenting the widest possible range of musical genres and styles, and it ditches traditional hierarchies of headlining and opening slots. Instead of potential audiences funneling to one or two big stages at the end of the night, festival-goers are pushed to show up for both established and emerging acts all weekend, throughout large and small venues. “We wanted to flip the mindset that audiences only go out to see big nighttime shows, or that huge bands are only going to play the last set of the night at the biggest venue,” says Cornett. This results in festival magic for fans and bands: a seasoned rock band shredding an afternoon patio set, an experimental jazz group followed by an indie songwriter, an EDM audience rubbing elbows with the hardcore scene. “We want you to come find your new favorite band,” shares Lyle.
Photo by Backstage Flash
FoCoMX will take place in Downtown Fort Collins on Friday, April 18th and Saturday, April 19th. The festival will feature 420 live performances on nearly 40 stages. For the full festival schedule, tickets, and volunteer information, visit focomx.org.
