In a world where festivals have become a product of capitalist values, few have managed to persist and uphold the true meaning of holding events: community, culture, and sustainability. However, one festival has managed to include each of these values and more, fostering a sense of community and togetherness. Located in Massachusetts, The Homie Collective Campout is one of the newer events making its way into the festival circuit. From the festival’s humble beginnings as a backyard band session, it has blossomed into a community of music enthusiasts. This year, the festival will take place from August 21st to August 24th.
From Humble Beginnings to Building a Community:
Since The Homie Collective Campout’s first public year in 2022, the festival has expanded further than the events team could ever have hoped. Even before their public opening, the team instilled a handful of values and goals that have made the event what it is today: a gathering of friends and music lovers alike with an extremely grassroots mindset. Charlie Hildreth, the festival’s Director, started the campout and proved that there was a need for an event that was both community-based and for the people. From community outreach to operational affairs, the festival is run by a collective of individuals who aim to uphold the art of running events in a sustainable, ethical manner.
Aside from their stellar lineup, they pride themselves on their versatility and ability to curate a vibe like no other. With an old-school summer camp ambiance, the event is both nostalgic and nuanced. This year, the team is hosting the event at Moses Scout Reservation, a Boy Scout reservation in Russell, Massachusetts. The festival’s team is extremely excited for festival-goers to take in what this venue has to offer. Featuring pre-built lodges and a swimmable lake, this venue has everything you want and more.
While the festival originally began as a showcase for local bands, it has become so much more than that. Over the past four years, the event has become widely recognized, drawing attendees from all over the country and beyond. The Homie Collective Campout does its best to provide an experience for everyone, accommodating music lovers of all genres. The team’s overall goal is to “provide a little bit of something for everyone.” From what we can see, they’re doing just that!
“Everything we do is for the people.”
-Bryan Shields (Director of Operations)
What To Expect From The Homie Collective Campout:
Alongside a lineup that gives most festival goers a terrible case of FOMO, the event features extensive workshops and activations. From flow arts to mediumship and emotional rewiring workshops, there is an insane range of activities for everyone to attend. Outside of workshops, Electric Braids will provide glam for attendees, and you can even hit up the Blazy Susan lounge for all of your smoking needs. And if you make it to morning festivities, you can start your day off with sunrise yoga!
The Homie Collective Campout features four stages, each showcasing a different genre. As in previous years, the live band and bass stage will be active throughout the entirety of the day’s festivities. However, this year, the festival has added a house stage hosted in a steeple, in which you can expect “deep-house and dnb-centered tunes.” While the house and silent disco stages are the only ones running at night, the team encourages late-night vibes. Each stage features a different genre, allowing attendees to get a little taste of everything they desire. This year, the lineup features some of music’s most anticipated artists, including Ott, Bella Renee, and special guest Riot Ten. The festival has no plans of being reduced to a single genre and aims to continue expanding its reach.
In order to get a deeper insight into what The Homie Campout Collective has to offer, we took the opportunity to interview the festival’s Director of Operations, Bryan Shields. If you’re still on the fence about attending the event, check out our interview with Bryan below!
Diving Deep With Bryan Shields of The Homie Collective Campout
Raenen Huot, Electric Hawk: How did The Homie Collective Campout come to be? What was the driving force behind the creation of this event?
Bryan Shields: Homie Collective Campout started in 2019 as a private backyard get-together coordinated by local bands in Massachusetts. It began as a collection of friends coming together to create a communal space to showcase their art. The event officially became public in 2022, when the team rented out an actual venue and held a festival. Since the beginning, the event has been a super grassroots kind of vibe, with everyone contributing and giving what they can to the cause. It’s just a very community-centric kind of event. After my experience working on the event last year and seeing how everything plays out, the vibe, and general consensus of the people there is just so pure and almost relieving, you know what I mean?
You go to these big festivals, and it’s a huge corporate vibe. Homie Collective is just homies helping homies; that’s just what it’s all about. Last year we did over 1,500 people, so it’s grown to be a significant event. This year we’ve got Ott., Riot Ten, Roots of Creation… Lespecial. It brings a whole different vibe as far as the music we bring and the environment that people are in. I love the fact that we’ve got some jam bands coming out, dubstep artists, and are now incorporating a house stage to broaden our genre reach even further. The event has something for everybody, and on top of it, we’ve got the workshops with people teaching about stuff that they’re passionate about. I find that really, really cool and different.
RH: What are some new aspects and features that you guys are including at this year’s event?
Bryan Shields: We’ve got a bunch of people from different areas teaching about things they’re passionate about, and I find that to be super cool. These people doing workshops are doing it because they want to. They want to show people what their passions are, and it’s just dope. We have the whole flow workshop, where we have a flow director who brings in fire performers and all this stuff. It’s just a very community-centric situation. We’ve also got The Festival Babes coming out, Electric Braids doing hair, and one of our bigger sponsors, Blazy Susan, so they’ll be hosting a lounge and stuff like that. We’ll also have sunrise yoga that will start before any of the day’s sets, sound meditation, flow star, hula hoop, poi flow, emotional rewiring, and a medium workshop. I have to give it to our workshop coordinators who organize all the workshops on site and make sure that every host gets the recognition they deserve to showcase their passions.
RH: Is this the first time you guys are hosting the event at this specific venue?
Bryan Shields: Yeah, that’s probably been the biggest struggle so far, the fact that every year has been a new venue for the four public years. This year’s venue is Moses Scout Reservation, a Boy Scout reservation. I think that it provides everything we need and encompasses a cool summer camp vibe. We have cabins with bunk beds, and it’s just a great situation. Last year, we had no infrastructure, so we had to build everything. Definitely hoping that we can keep this as our venue moving forward, and hoping that we can establish ourselves here and make it something that people want to come back to.
RH: How many stages do you guys have total this year?
Bryan Shields: So we have a jam band stage and a bass stage, which are our two main stages. Then we have the house stage, which I’d definitely consider a side stage. It’s inside a steeple, and we’ll have full sound and production setups. From 11:30 pm-5 am, we have an indoor stage due to a curfew for outdoor sound, so we’ll still have some bigger names playing on with a few takeovers and such. It’s gonna be intimate, you know? We’ll have a silent disco running too for those who don’t want to participate in the indoor aspect. Other than that, we have the zen den, super ambient chill vibes for campers to hang out in.
RH: I saw on your website that you guys have a harm reduction tent. Do you want to expand on that a little and give a little insight on what it includes?
Bryan Shields: So it’s called Radiate Positivity. Emily, on our AR team, is involved with the project and brings the team on every year to hand out Narcan and be a resource for people if there’s something they need. Usually, we’ll put the Zen Den near the wellness tent so people can catch a break if they need it. We like to offer safe spaces for people and are always trying to be on top of making sure everybody’s safe and having a good time. Everything is very wellness-based, and everyone’s looking out for each other.
RH: Do you guys have any plans to give back or have any initiatives that you’re looking towards supporting in the future?
Bryan Shields: We have this company, Wasted, that does all of our port-a-potties, and it’s actually really interesting. Everything that gets taken in gets hauled off-site and turned into soil. They basically turn all of the waste into usable resources. We would love to help them grow into a notable brand because what they’re doing is so great. We do a ton of different things, like working with one of the community colleges nearby, where they lend us some of their media students to come in and work and get credit for their portfolios and classes. We’ve also reached out to different vocational schools to see if they have any carpenters or anything like that we could use to help with the build, and they can get credit and some experience. Overall, everything we do is give-back-based, and everything we do is for the people. It truly blows my mind how much heart our whole team puts into this. I’m just lucky to be along for the ride with such an awesome group of people, because at the end of the day, none of this would be possible without each and every person on our team.
RH: I know your lineup has shifted quite a bit over the years in terms of genre. Do you think you’re pulling towards a specific focus genre in the future, or do you aim to keep it well-rounded?
Bryan Shields: I’d like to think my involvement played a small part in broadening the range of music we offer to attendees. I wanted to put it in perspective that we already have so many different avenues that were going down to provide something for everybody, so if we were just providing heavy bass music and jam band stuff, that’s a very wide group of people. But think about everyone else who maybe isn’t too sure about the genres being played. This year, we want to include DnB and a more house-centric stage, to really draw in a whole new crowd of people. We want to keep the lineup more general so there’s a little something for everyone.
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