Firefly Music Festival

Firefly Music Festival

Location(s)	The Woodlands of Dover International Speedway Dover, Delaware
Years active	2012–present
Founded by	Red Frog Events
Date(s)	Every June
Website	fireflyfestival.com

Firefly Music Festival is a music festival produced by Red Frog Events, that was first held on July 20–22, 2012, in Dover, Delaware. The festival takes place in The Woodlands of Dover International Speedway, an 105-acre festival ground, over the span of four days. Many nationally known musical acts performed at the festival, with 48 performances held over the course of the festival in 2012,^[1] 71 bands in 2013, and 95 bands scheduled to perform in 2014.^[2] The festival is produced by Red Frog Events, with the hopes of having "an open-air festival on the East Coast with plenty of outdoor camping, much like the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee".^[3] Firefly Music Festival's tagline is "The East Coast's Premier Music Experience." For the festival, The Woodlands of Dover International Speedway includes seven stages, named The Porch Stage, The Lawn Stage, The Backyard Stage, the Big Break Stage, The Forest Stage, and The Firefly Stage.^[4]

Musical acts

2012

The headliners for the 2012 festival included Jack White, The Killers, and The Black Keys. Each performer played as the final act for a separate night of the festival on The Firefly Stage, the largest stage at the event. Other notable acts included Death Cab for Cutie, John Legend, Bassnectar, Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips, Cake, Lupe Fiasco, Girl Talk, and others. Although Passion Pit was listed as a musical act for 2012, their performance was cancelled due to lead singer Michael Angelakos seeking ongoing treatment for bipolar disorder. Yeasayer was chosen as the replacement for Passion Pit's performance.

The 2012 schedule listed in order from latest performance in the day to earliest:

• Friday, July 20

• Jack White, Bassnectar, Silversun Pickups, Walk the Moon, John Legend, OK Go, Mayer Hawthorne & the Country, The Wallflowers, Matt Costa, Heartless Bastards, Blind Pilot, Turf War

• Saturday, July 21

• The Killers, Lupe Fiasco, Yeasayer, Trampled by Turtles, Modest Mouse, CAKE, Chiddy Bang, Young the Giant, Graffiti6, Grouplove, The Knocks, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Cults, Poliça, Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaries, The Felice Brothers, Kids These Days, Ra Ra Riot, Imagine Dragons, Moon Taxi

• Sunday, July 22

• The Black Keys, The Flaming Lips, Girl Talk, Allen Stone, Death Cab for Cutie, Tinie Tempah, Fitz and The Tantrums, Cold War Kids, Mariachi El Bronx, Awolnation, Bombay Bicycle Club, Reptar, The Head and the Heart, Penguin Prison, J Roddy Walston and the Business, Lower Case Blues

2013

The headliners for the 2013 festival included Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Foster the People.^[5][6] Other notable acts included Vampire Weekend, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Avett Brothers, Calvin Harris, Passion Pit, MGMT, Ellie Goulding, Dispatch, Ben Harper, Kendrick Lamar, Alabama Shakes, Japandroids, Grizzly Bear, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, The Chevin, Big Gigantic, Azealia Banks, Jim James, Zedd, Matt & Kim, Public Enemy, and Dr. Dog.

Imagine Dragons was scheduled to be the only returning musical act between the 2012 and 2013 Firefly Music Festival. However, due to a scheduling conflict they had to cancel their performance and were replaced by Jim James.^[7] The Lumineers were also scheduled to perform, but cancelled for medical reasons. Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite replaced them in the lineup.

The 2013 schedule (artists listed from earliest to latest set times):

• Friday, June 21

• Firefly Main Stage: The Neighbourhood, Django Django, Dr. Dog, The Avett Brothers, Red Hot Chili Peppers
• The Lawn: Leagues, Wild Belle, Atlas Genius, Ellie Goulding, Calvin Harris
• The Backyard: JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound, Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, Twenty One Pilots, The Joy Formidable, Public Enemy, Grizzly Bear, Krewella
• The Porch: The Spinto Band, Conner Youngblood, Action Bronson, Foxygen, Dragonette, Earl Sweatshirt, Dan Deacon

• Saturday, June 22

• Firefly Main Stage: Japandroids, Jim James, Alabama Shakes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• The Lawn: Kopecky Family Band, ZZ Ward, Kendrick Lamar, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, MGMT
• The Backyard: Young Empires, Blondfire, He's My Brother She's My Sister, A Silent Film, Chvrches, Youngblood Hawke, Azealia Banks, Big Gigantic
• The Porch: Imaginary Cities, Hey Marseilles, St. Lucia, Lord Huron, Crystal Fighters, Krewella, The White Panda

• Sunday, June 23

• Firefly Main Stage: The Chevin, LP, Ben Harper, Passion Pit, Foster the People
• The Lawn: Selah Sue, Haim, Matt & Kim, Dispatch, Vampire Weekend
• The Backyard: Delta Rae, The Apache Relay, The Last Bison, Kishi Bashi, Capital Cities, The Walkmen, Zedd
• The Porch: The Last Royals, Trails and Ways, Wheeler Brothers, Robert DeLong, Toro y Moi, Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra

2014

On January 14, 2014 the lineup for 2014 was announced via the official Firefly YouTube channel. The headliners for 2014 include Outkast, Foo Fighters, and Jack Johnson with other notable acts Weezer, Imagine Dragons, Tegan and Sara, Chance The Rapper, Arctic Monkeys, Sleigh Bells, The Lumineers and more. Girl Talk, twenty one pilots, and Imagine Dragons are returning for their second year performing at the festival.

Activities

In addition to attending the musical acts at the show, The Firefly Music Festival offers guests other attractions during the day. An arcade tent is set up, providing arcade and video games that are all free to play. In another tent, attendees can design their own pair of Toms Shoes and have an artist paint the design. With the purchase of the custom pair of shoes, an additional pair of Toms is sent to a child in need, through the Toms One For One Movement program. The Hammock Hangout is a shaded area for attendees to sit or lie down in a hammock. The Pathway is a wooded path from The Lawn Stage and The Porch Stage, leading to The Backyard Stage and The Firefly Stage, that contains colorful lights and video displays that come on at night at the festival.

In its first year in 2012, Firefly featured hot air balloon rides over The Woodlands. This attraction did not appear on its website for 2013.^[8] Other attractions include a silent disco known at firefly as The Thicket.

Firefly partners with Delaware's Dogfish Head Brewery to have The Brewery, an onsite beer bar. The bar serves Firefly Ale, a microbrew Dogfish Head Pale Ale made specifically for the festival in its first year by the brewery. Firefly also sets up The Vineyard, an onsite wine bar.

Firefly offers a Photobooth and Flip Book tent, a cooling and charging station where attendees can charge electronic devices in an air-conditioned tent, a shaded pavilion, a merchandise tent, and a medical tent.

Lodging

A number of lodging options exist at the festival. Attendees of the festival can choose to camp in a tent or RV in what Firefly calls The Grove. Additionally, attendees can choose "glamping", a portmanteau of the words "glamorous" and "camping", with private, air-conditioned safari tents, beds with sheets, access to private and air-conditioned showers and bathrooms, access to a private food lounge, and shuttle services to and from the festival and other attractions. For the "glamping" experience, at a lower cost, Firefly offers The Hideout Camping for 2013, which includes all benefits of the "glamping" package, except for the safari tent and beds. Finally, attendees can choose to make hotel reservations in Dover and stay offsite of the Dover International Speedway.

Accolades

"In its debut year, Firefly was surprisingly devoid of on-site hiccups. Organized by Red Frog Events...Firefly rolled on with the precision of an event many years in the making." - Billboard^[9]

"It’s about damn time the East Coast had a great music festival." - Emily Sheetz for MusicUnderFire^[10]

"I think this festival is special because of the combination of the forest setting, the great lineup, and the overall vibe of the festival. It was a really great place to see music with all of the new friends you made." - TheFestivalGuy.com^[11]

"Save for some first-year jitters, the inaugural edition of Firefly was a highly promising one." - Ben Kaye for Consequence of Sound^[12]

Economy

In 2012, Delaware Tourism Director Linda Parkowski said she expected the festival to generate $12.6 million in revenue for Delaware, as well as bring 30,000–40,000 people from 48 out of 50 states to Dover.^[13] For 2013, expectations are even greater, with estimates of generated revenue being between $12–30 million for central Delaware.^[14]

Environmentalism

Firefly Music Festival promotes itself as a sustainable and environmentally friendly festival, with its program Sustainable Beats. A part of this program includes carbon footprint offsetting with ticket purchases. Attendees of the festival have the option of donating to the carbon footprint offsetting program when purchasing their tickets online, which allows each attendee to offset 440 pounds of carbon dioxide. The festival matches each of these donations up until the festival is completely carbon neutral. In 2012, this program offset over 1.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide.^[15] Additionally, water refill stations are found throughout The Woodlands, reusable water bottles are sold at the concert and encouraged to concert attendees, and the festival participates in a waste diversion program to reduce the amount of trash from the festival that ends up in a landfill.^[15]

Partners

Firefly and Red Frog Events have partnered with St. Jude's Music Gives to St. Jude Kids program to "enlist artists large and small, emerging and established, to join St. Jude in the fight against childhood cancer."^[16] This program includes having a tent for donations at the event, having meet-and-greet events with various performers at the concert, and other ways of fundraising for the program. In 2012, Firefly attendees raised over $4.6 million for Music Gives to St. Jude Kids.^[16]

References

External links

• Official website