Pickathon

The Pickathon Music Festival (commonly called Pickathon or Pickathon Festival) is an annual three day music festival located just outside of Portland, Oregon, in Happy Valley on the Pendarvis Farm.[1] Occurring every August since 1999, the festival has featured a variety of artists and genres including: Indie, Rock, Rap, Folk, and Bluegrass.[1] Pickathon also offers camping, and food options on site.[1] Each artist/act perform twice throughout the weekend, playing on two of the six available venues.[1][2] The festival is well known for promoting more sustainable environmental practices; offering eco-friendly transportation, use of sustainable fuel and solar energy, recycling and composting team, and the elimination of plastic tableware.[1][2] Unlike many other successful music festivals, Pickathon has no corporate sponsors and caps ticket sales at 3,500.[3] With the ticket sales capped the festival founder, Zale Schoenborn, was forced to get creative and set up live streams and cameras to package the edited footage as digital content.[3][4]

Location and Festival Grounds

Pickathon has had three different venues through its history.[5] The first venue was at Horning's Hideout, North Plains, Oregon.[5] The next venue was Pudding River in Woodburn, Oregon.[5] Finally Pickathon was moved to Pendarvis Farm, which is where it has stayed to this day.[2][5]

Pendarvis Farm

Pendarvis Farms is located at 16581 S.E. Hagen Rd. Happy Valley, Oregon, 97086.[1] The farm has held Pickathon since 2006 on its 88 acres of land, allowing plenty of space for camping options as well as dozens of local food vendors.[1][3][5]

Camping

Pickathon offers a variety of camping options.[1] You have the option to choose between day and weekend passes.[1] These passes include general camping, RV camping, car camping, and luxury camping options (commonly called "glamping" or "glamorous camping").[1] General camping is located just uphill from the main festival grounds.[1] With RV and car camping you can set up your tent and gear right next to your vehicle.[1] The luxury camping options include gear and tent rental.[1]

Food

There are tons of food options at the Pickathon Music Festival.[1] Outside food is welcomed at Pickathon; outside alcohol is not permitted, although there are tons of places to get drinks, as well as free drinking water, on the festival grounds.[1] Every year there are dozens of food carts brought in from the surrounding area.[1] All food sold on festival grounds is locally sourced.[5] Pickathon also offers an exclusive dining experience called the curation series.[1] This limited seating dining experience presents guests with a multiple course meal, prepared by talented chefs from around the Portland area.[1] The meal is accompanied by a more intimate music performed by one of Pickathon’s artists.[1]

Organization

As part of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company received between $150,000 and $350,000 in federally backed small business loan from US Bank as part of the Paycheck Protection Program. The company stated it would allow them to retain 3 jobs.[6]

Environmental Sustainability

Over the years, Pickathon has gained notability for promoting more sustainable practices.[1] They offer eco-friendly transportation and encourage biking to the festival.[1][2] In addition, in 2011, they eliminated all plastic tableware, and in turn also became the first large outdoor U.S. festival to do so.[1] This means you either have to bring tableware or purchase/borrow from a vendor.[1][2] Pickathon also uses its own solar energy and sustainable fuel through their partnership with the company Star Oilco.[2] There’s also a group of volunteer recycling and composting teams.[2] Pickathon has promised to keep working towards a more sustainable options for the future.[1][2]

History

1999-2004

Pickathon originally started in 1999 as a fundraiser for the FM radio station, KBOO.[5] The first venue was Horning's Hideout, a private park in North Plains, Oregon.[5] The first annual Pickathon only managed to host around ninety people, including performers.[5] Despite the low attendance, a discouraged Schoenborn continued the festival the following year at the Horning's Hideout.[5] Attendance growth stayed relatively low through 2004 with attendance bouncing around the low and high two-hundreds.[5] Schoenburg suggested it took a miracle for the festival to survive through those rough first years.[5]

Avett Brothers Performing at Pickathon, 2006

2005

In 2005, Horning's Hideout backed out two months before the 7th annual event was scheduled.[5] Schoenborn and other organizers, scrambling to find a venue, found an open property in Woodburn, Oregon.[5] This was the first year they had running water and electricity.[5] Along with the water and electricity, it was also the first year they met GuildWorks, an event fabric architecture installation company.[5][7]

2006

In 2006, Pickathon would see their second relocation; this time to ending up at Pendarvis Farms in Happy Valley, Oregon.[5] This would become their location to this day.[2][5]

Warpaint Performing at 2014 Pickathon

2011

In an effort to become more environmentally friendly, Pickathon eliminated all plastic tableware.[1]

2019

On August 8th of 2019, two arborists and workers of GuildWorks, Brad Swet, 35, and Brandon Blackmore, 27, died as a boom lift, which was set on an incline, toppled over during take down of the festival.[8] In a statement released by the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office, the workers were ascending the lift when the incident occurred.[9] In February 2020, the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued $31,000 in fines to Pickathon LLC and GuildWorks LLC for failing to follow safety precautions.[10] A memorial fund was created for both of the victim's families.[8]

gollark: ... it doesn't even keep your number if you roll?
gollark: Excellent error handling.
gollark: I added config now so it's... pretty much done?
gollark: I finished the log viewer bit.
gollark: Carthago delenda est.

References
  1. "Pickathon Music Festival". Portland. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  2. "Info". Pickathon. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  3. "Can Pickathon Survive its Own Success?". Portland Monthly. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  4. Notarianni, John. "Pickathon At 20: The Local Festival With The Global Audience". www.opb.org. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  5. "How Pickathon Became Portland's Biggest Little Music Festival". Willamette Week. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  6. Syed, Moiz; Willis, Derek. "PICKATHON LLC - Coronavirus Bailouts - ProPublica". ProPublica. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  7. "GuildWorks ~ Architecture of the Air". GuildWorks ~ Architecture of the Air. Retrieved 2019-11-07.
  8. "GuildWorks Releases Information About Workers Killed During Pickathon Breakdown Last Week". Willamette Week. Retrieved 2019-11-07.
  9. "Sheriff's Office responds to fatal boom-lift accident that killed two arborists at Pickathon site | Clackamas County". www.clackamas.us. Retrieved 2019-11-15.
  10. Ramakrishnan, Jayati (February 12, 2020). "OSHA fines companies after accident that killed 2 at Oregon's Pickathon festival". The Oregonian. Retrieved February 13, 2020.
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