Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
A Nevada man who graduated from high school in the Central Linn area is advertising reservations for VIP seating for a new country music festival, beginning next year, in the Brownsville area on craigslist.com.
Warren Williamson said he believes that there is enough room in the area to operate his event, the Willamette Country Music Festival, along with Sweet Home’s Oregon Jamboree without affecting the success of the Jamboree.
Williamson said he grew up in Southern California and then moved to the Central Linn area, where he attended high school and college.
His professional background is in television, he said, and he is involved in the production of a nationally syndicated program, “Backstage Pass,” through which “we’ve done a lot of behind-the-scenes on country music artists,” he said.
After several years of covering the Country Music Association music festival, a four-day festival with attendance of 160,000, he was inspired to start his own festival, he said.
“My primary focus was giving back to the community,” he said – in particular, where he went to high school, the Central Linn School District, and Sharing Hands, a nonprofit that clothes and feeds low-income families.
“Knowing how well Peter (LaPonte, Jamboree event manager) has run the one over in Sweet Home, I thought there was room for another one,” Williamson said.
Competition is not a goal, he said. “I can only hope that we can be as good as the Jamboree. In 15 years, they’ve done an incredible job.”
His thought was to do something toward the beginning of the summer since the Jamboree is toward the end, he said. “I don’t believe we’ll make a dent in ticket sales, vendors and advertisers. I think people are going to be tremendously excited.”
Williamson said he has not had the opportunity to speak with LaPonte yet, but he hopes to do this as a team, publicizing and promoting the Jamboree during the Willamette Festival.
He has been asked why he’s not doing a jazz or rock festival, he said, but he believes country is the way to go.
“It is the all-American, family-oriented” genre, he said. Festivals, such as the CMA in Nashville and the Jamboree in Sweet Home, are “all about the country music fans.”
Williamson said one of his priorities will be getting the community involved. He has gone before the Brownsville City Council and visited business owners in the community.
“I think with anything new, there’s always a sense of hesitation,” he said. “But because I have family here and grew up here, there’s a sense of trust.”
He said he has a couple of possible venues in mind, including Pioneer Park in Brownsville and a farm outside of Brownsville.
Williamson will appear before the Brownsville City Council on Sept. 20 for its decision on whether his event can use the park, he said. After seeing how fast the Jamboree has grown, to the point organizers are seeking property where the festival can expand its audience, even if the Brownsville council approves the use of the park, he will still need to determine which site will be better for the long-term viability of his festival.
In nearly a month since opening the show to reservations, Williamson said he has 300 VIP reservations, from people in Oregon, California and Idaho, without announcing any acts.
That bodes well for the festival with another 10 to 11 months to go, he said.
He has been advertising at craigslist.com, offering a three-day outdoor country music festival with 2,000 reserved VIP seats for $150 for a three-day pass. According to the ad, general admission will be $75 and camping is available. The ad also states that seats may be reserved for nothing until the event’s box office opens.
Headline acts will be announced later in the fall, according to the ad.
Williamson had been seeking between $125,000 and $150,000 from investors through another craigslist.com advertisement primarily for use in securing headliners.
To reach a goal of selling out in three to six months, the ad said, the festival needs to secure two or three country music headliners to attract additional interest. Country music artists and their agents require a 50-percent deposit on their services to secure specific performance dates.
The investor portion has changed since posting the advertisement, Williamson said. At one point, the event needed the liquid cash available, but another route has opened up. He declined to talk about event finances in further detail.
“I have some good core people around me,” he said. They include event planners and finance people, people who know how to run events like this.
“We went into this knowing what we had to do,” he said. “We’re thrilled to be able to bring this event to the Willamette Valley, Brownsville and all those communities around us. We’re thrilled people will have another event to kick off the summer.”
Ticket information is available by e-mailing to [email protected].