The History of LFDF:

​

In the summer of 2012, my friend Quinton Cheney (of Something and the Whatevers and formerly Panda Circus) and I discovered that each of us had a date held on the Bottleneck calendar on the same weekend. Our friend Rob Schulte (who manages the Bottleneck and also can be seen as a member of local hip hop phenoms BaioWolf) suggested that we team up and put together a couple nights of local music, or just "whatever". It was clear he wanted us to try to make an event out of it, because as all of us in LFK know, summer is a VERY slow time for venues in any college town. After all, most of the college kids go back to their respective homes in cities all over the country.

​

But this got me to thinking - who cares? Why should LFK, a town rich with its own musical culture and talent, have to depend on college students who (for the most part) couldn't care less about what music they are hearing as long as they can dance to it and eventually hook up with someone at the end of the night? I thought Lawrence's music scene, as multi-faceted and high-quality as it is, deserved more. These circumstances were the blueprint of Lawrence Field Day Fest.

​

You know college kids, they can't wait for summertime. They can't wait to get back to their homes in Chicago, or Portland, or Seattle, or Minneapolis, or Houston, or wherever. Lawrence is just fine with this. When they leave, the small college town becomes a playground for the people who actually call it home. Traffic, of both the human and automotive kind, slows to a laid-back crawl. Downtown is all of a sudden not completely clogged with people whose main goal is to get as shitfaced as possible. Finally, a time for when LFK townies can enjoy the things that make their community great, of which there are a countless many.

​

Maybe it seems strange to have a music festival after so many people leave, as it does present a lot of logistical conundrums for something presented to a limited audience. But it's obviously not the point of LFDF to be some sort of national platform for all this wonderful music. Austinites ritually have huge blowouts the Sunday after SXSW to celebrate the riff raff leaving their city. In a broader sense, kids are compelled to throw parties when their parents leave town for the weekend. Conversely, parents are tempted to let loose and act like children again when their kids go on summer trips. Humans possess an innate, natural tendency to celebrate any sort of relief of stress, and LFDF is really just another good chance for people who live around here to enjoy themselves the way they like to - with great music and cheap beer.

Cheers,
Cameron