When I heard about an indie festival at Horning's Hideout I wondered why white-belted-scarf-wearing indie rockers would pay to attend an outdoor-campout summer festival.

Last year's 3900' Festival took place on the side of Mt. Hood in Government Camp. It actually was 3900 feet up. It had a fantastic lineup, including Shaky Hands, Builders & the Butchers, Horse Feathers, Crosswalks, Small Sails, Loch Lomond, lots and lots others.

There was almost no promotion, and scant attendance; almost everyone there was actually playing the festival. It was a lot of fun, and there was a ton of great music, but all in all it felt like the best thing the festival was its potential. There really was hardly anybody there. When things got chilly (it was September on Mt Hood), the fest moved down the street to local bar the Ratskeller, and filled it cozily.

I'd love to see the 3900' Festival take off--a summertime outdoor festival of great local bands could REALLY be amazing--but I hate to say that this year doesn't look like 3900's year. It's NOT at an altitude of 3900 feet this time and the lineup lacks a really solid draw... and again it sounds like lack of promotion and ticket sales are a problem. I really hope for the best though; this could be an awesome fest, and a great Portland music tradition if it gets legs.

don't fall for it. look into horning hideout's concert promotion history and you'll see that this isn't the first time they* have tried getting rid of expensive tickets fast using the excuse that the 'event might not happen unless'. there will be no festival, and you will not receive a refund. mark my words.

*whoever 'they' are.

look, that line-up is awful. that's where it both starts and ends.

Hey Mercury/Ezra/Mercury Blog Readers,

Brianne from Tender Loving Empire here. Thanks for putting in a word about the 3900' festival. We're not even really that involved in this festival, but are supporters of it, so I'd like to add a couple things to this conversation because I think it's an interesting one.

First of all, this isn't a scam. Talk to the organizers at The Union Records, and you'll soon find out it's just a few kids with a passion for independent music that want to create a fun weekend, in a beautiful setting with good music and good people.

What we're dealing with here is an independent grass roots music festival with a lot of potential, so grass roots in fact that they aren't depending on national headliners or touring acts to prop up their festival. Instead, they're hoping that there's enough people out there who are willing to give new, unknown bands a shot. Seems like Portland would be receptive? Comments about the lineup being poor are most likely just comments of the uninformed. And I'm including myself in the "uninformed" category, because i personally am not intimately accquainted with ALL the bands in the line-up or their live performances. I am a fan of a handful though. This time last year The Builders and Butchers and Shaky hands weren't near the names they are now...so there very well may be some gems in there that we just don't know about yet. And if you do actually end up hating them all, you've tried something new and spent the whole weekend in the sun (hopefully), camping somewhere beautiful, and running around all night with friends. I'm having a hard time figuring out what could be all that bad about this scenario.

Anyway, independent music fans of Portland: you have an opportunity to make this festival into something rad, or let it fall by the wayside. As Ezra pointed out, we have tons of music right here in town, including a festival within walking distance for most of us, which we're also really excited about! But i also love Portland because places like Horning's Hideout are close by to enjoy too.

Sounds like a good time to me! We hope to see you all there!

Thank you for all your feedback.

A couple points.

If we were to cancel, we would issue a refund. Despite what roxy is contending, we are not affiliated with past promoters who put on events at Horning's. Ned is correct, we did put this event on at Mt. Hood last year. And we ate a huge bill, thus we are seriously considering canceling, not plotting it as a promotion scam.

Sorry to burst your cynical bubble, roxy, but we are not evil fraud perpetrating masterminds pretending to promote a concert to take a whole $50 (now less than the price of a full tank) from you.

Brianne is right, last year several of the bands who are now PDX's "best" were on the bill, and virtual unknowns then. That's why we do it.

Not for the "white belted scarf wearing indie rockers".

I'm amazed that nobody sees this for the simple thing it is -- it's an outdoor 2 day festival with 2 nights of camping and a variety of pretty good bands. THAT is the start and the end of it. How can that not be totally awesome?

Do we really need the Flaming Lips to headline this shit? Also, the ticket prices are NOT expensive. You can pay a pretty good chunk of that just for camping in a state park for two nights WITHOUT the 30+ bands. I think the people who are calling it expensive are probably the same ones who bitch about a $5 cover for a 3 band show and then proceed to spend $30+ on drinks.

Also, comparing "festivals" may be irrelevant, but even mentioning MusicFestNW here is just stupid. I love MFNW but it has nothing to do with this and is really not what I would even call a "festival". You can pay your $50 and then maybe see a decent fraction of the bands you wanted to see, if you're down to spend a lot of time running around town and coordinating your schedule. For most people it's not much more than a weekend with a lot of good shows to choose from, as if we don't have good shows around town all the time already.

There are millions of people in the Portland Metro area, and there are way way more than the capacity of Horning's who would love to participate in something like this -- the real problem is that nobody knows about it because the promotion has been so dismal. I've talked about it to dozens of my friends/acquaintances over the past few months and not a single one has even heard of it -- seriously not a one, many of them being show-going Portland music lovers. For something like this to go off there needs to be some level of hype. Usually headlining bands get the ball rolling on that, so when there aren't any it takes a calculated marketing campaign to get the word out.

The people just need to know about it -- so just, you know, start telling people y'all! It'll be so fun! I mean shit, you can even go fishing there. Come on!!!