On Friday, thousands of concert-goers are expected to descend on Veterans Memorial Park in Vineyard Haven for Beach Road Weekend, the three-day music festival returning in full for the first time since its debut in 2019.
Featuring touring headliners, local bands and even a culinary director for the musicians, the event began to take shape, physically, this week. Producer Adam Epstein paused for a moment on Wednesday in the thick of transforming Veterans Park from a quiet outpost that plays host to soccer and softball games and dog walking, into a big-time music festival location.
Mr. Epstein’s crew of a few hundred volunteers and workers buzzed around in the heat with less than 48 hours until showtime. Finishing touches included potted hydrangeas, plush furniture rounding out the VIP Sky Deck, and a 40-foot wire-frame lighthouse towering next to the stages.
“The first steps on the site were last Tuesday, that’s when everything started,” Mr. Epstein said. “The first thing we do is lay the foundation so we can work on the site without doing any harm to it. We lay a road down, there’s material that’s used…hard plastic material that keeps space between the ground and the surface so trailers can drive on the field without doing any damage to the ground.”
Mr. Epstein is a longtime summer resident of the Island and has organized hundreds of concerts, festivals and theatrical performances across the country. This year’s lineup includes Beck, Wilco, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, the Avett Brothers, Jason Isbell, to name just a few of the headliners. Each day the music begins at 10:45 a.m. and ends at 8 p.m.
“I’ve always wanted to throw something like this on the Island,” Mr. Epstein said. He first conceived of an on-Island music festival in 2017 but had trouble locating a space. He ended up finding one in his own backyard — Veteran’s Memorial Park is down the street from the organizer’s summer home.
The show’s two stages will host more than 30 bands over three days.
— Ray Ewing
“Honestly, I had kind of given up hope when one day I was at Cumberland Farms to get a Diet Coke and there was a pathway back there and I went to check it out,” he recalled. “Nobody knew this field was here except for a couple softball players who used the field.”
Mr. Epstein learned that the park belonged to the Tisbury Department of Public Works, whose emeritus director, George Falco, happened to be Mr. Epstein’s neighbor. He gave Mr. Falco a call and told him his plan for the space.
“This is an 80 year old, mind you. He said we have to make this happen.”
John Fogerty headlined the original festival in 2019, along with Phil Lesh and Friends, Grace Potter and many other bands. Covid canceled 2020, and 2021 featured a much abridged version.
Enter 2022, with over 30 bands and thousands of concert-goers expected.
Everything from supply chain delays, tourist demands and ferry maintenance issues had to be anticipated, Mr. Epstein said.
“Everything, everything is preventable. Supply chains are supply chains — they supply. If you think about things far enough advance and build redundancy into your system, there is no supply chain problem.”
“We knew our plan well in advance, but it was still challenging,” he continued. “When you’re in the middle of something you can either go bankrupt or charge ahead and find a way to do it. We will find a way to solve every problem.”
As in previous years, the festival will offer shuttle service across all six towns on the Island to bring attendees to Vineyard Haven with minimal traffic. Anyone who bikes to the festival grounds will also receive special perks and discounts from vendors inside, as an incentive to minimize cars on the road.
A traffic director has been hired, independent of the Tisbury Police Department, to manage the intersection at Five Corners. While private festivals are required to hire their own private security, local police will also be available in the surrounding area for any public safety needs.
To account for the Steamship Authority schedule, the headline acts are set to finish by 8 p.m., leaving concert-goers time to catch the last ferries off-Island, at 8:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. Seastreak will be running additional ferries between New Bedford, leaving as late as 10:30 p.m., to accommodate any overflow.
“The one thing I would change is the end time,” Mr. Epstein said. “There’s just something kind of magical about listening to music under the stars. There’s drama to it…but we didn’t want to create a situation where people got left behind.”
Mr. Epstein said a feature that sets Beach Road Weekend apart is its 501 c(3) nonprofit status, which ensures money made from the festival gets funneled back into the Vineyard community.
“This is the gala fundraiser that raises money for local music and arts programming, youth sports, you name it,” he said. “We get a lot of talk about profiteering — everything people can possibly misunderstand, they throw our way. In truth, we haven’t made a penny [of profit].”
He also wants to treat the musicians well and has brought on local chef Ben DeForest, owner of Red Cat Kitchen and the Cardboard Box in Oak Bluffs, as culinary director. On Wednesday, Mr. DeForest was sweating it out in an outdoor kitchen at the corner of the festival grounds, preparing to feed the artists this weekend.
“It’s an extension of my attention deficit disorder cuisine…we try to create a functioning farm market backstage if you will,” Mr. DeForest said. “A lot of shows and performers and promoters don’t have…I hate the term because I’ve been doing this my entire career, a farm-to-table experience.”
Mr. DeForest pointed to a cook under his tent preparing cucumbers.
“Those cucumbers in his hand were picked this morning,” he said. “The tomatoes, the basil, the fish…we basically just want to have a farm stand you can eat at. There’s something for everybody.”
As a vote of confidence for Mr. Epstein and his team, the town of Tisbury has approved a three-year contract to continue to host the festival at Veteran’s Memorial Park.
“My hope for the next three years, frankly for the next 10, is that everything you see here is the footprint,” Mr. Epstein said. “It’s about building a framework so I can lock down everything I need by August 30. How can we build something we can replicate?”
For more information, visit beachroadweekend.com.
