Summer Camp’s Ian Goldberg Details New Solshine Festival With Andy Frasco

Organizers of the Summer Camp Music Festival will soon debut the first edition of the new Solshine: A Music & Arts Reverie festival concept over Memorial Day Weekend, May 24 – 26. The inaugural edition of Solshine will be held at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe, Illinois, the same location Summer Camp took place at during its 22-year run.

Summer Camp/Solshine organizer Ian Goldberg appeared on a special episode of Andy Frasco’s World Saving Podcast to discuss what led to overhauling the annual event in Central Illinois. JamBase partner Volume.com is the exclusive video home of Andy Frasco’s World Saving Podcast.

Goldberg candidly spoke to Frasco and co-host Nick Gerlach about the challenges the independent festival promoter has faced in recent years, which influenced the decision to revamp Summer Camp. Pointing to the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, Goldberg explained some of the issues that led to the changes being rolled out this year.

Goldberg detailed some of the decision making progress behind the revamp, stating:

“During the whole time that we were growing and growing and growing – I tend to want to give back and make that about be about the festival and the event – and we just kept adding areas and adding stages and doing stuff and got to the point where we had nine stages and 180 artists … [so] to be frank and honest, yes, of course, the the financial end of it comes into play.

“But what really drove this decision was a lot more of the stress on, of course myself, but even more so our team trying to get the staffing and the equipment and all the things that are necessary in a small little town in Central Illinois. As you can imagine, we’re bringing stuff from states far away traveling in to do all of this and pre-pandemic we would get inundated with requests from people, ‘We want to work your festival. What can we do?’ And we’d have a backlog of people that lined up to work.

“Now, we’re going through our whole rolodex trying to find people to come out and work the festival – qualified people, of course. After getting through it in ‘21, doing it in ‘22 and then in ‘23 it just wasn’t getting a lot better, [like] having issues where the golf cart company shows up the day of the festival [and says], ‘We can get another driver, so you’re 50 carts short.’ Or not getting the all of the Porta Johns that we requested and staffing, all of that.

“It’s become really, really stressful to build something the size of what Summer Camp has been in, in this little town in Central Illinois … So I realized that we were gonna have to make some changes and consolidate parts of the festival to make it more reasonable to find the staffing that we need, to find the dressing room trailers that we need, all of those things.”

The interview is a must listen for prior Summer Camp attendees curious about what to expect at Solshine. Goldberg addressed the festival’s layout, the number of stages and their locations, lineup decisions and pending announcements, ticketing options and other aspects of the event like the The Illumination Woods immersive art area.

Goldberg also gave a bit of an “inside baseball” look behind-the-scenes at the process the independent festival promoter goes through to book the lineup. The discussion touched on Goldberg’s approach to confirming acts for the festival and how that process had changed – and in some cases become more difficult – over the past two decades. Calling the lineup a “work of art,” Goldberg revealed how contentious finalizing the order of performers on the poster has become.

Watch Ian Goldberg discuss Solshine on Andy Frasco’s World Saving Podcast below:

Solshine: A Music & Arts Reverie will present performances by host bands Umphrey’s McGee and moe. as well as performances from Goose, The String Cheese Incident, STS9, John Summit, Big Gigantic, deadmau5, Slander, Orebolo, Mihali, Keller Williams, Big Something, lespecial, Doom Flamingo, Manic Focus, Eggy, The Werks, Moon Hooch, DJ Brownie, Maddy O’Neal, Polyrhythmics, Steady Flow, Old Shoe, Allie Kral and many more. As Goldberg noted, additional artist announcements are expected.

“One of the best things that I saw when we announced our lineup though was all of the posts were, ‘So, wait a second, this is just summer camp with a new name?’” Goldberg said at the end of the interview. “I’m like, ‘Yes! Exactly!’ That’s what I want. That’s the reaction I wanted when you saw the lineup, to be like, ‘Yes! This is that same thing.’ There’s gonna be changes on the ground and things are gonna be a little bit different, but everything that you’ve come to know and love as Summer Camp you can find at Solshine, just with a little different setup.”

Solshine: A Music & Arts Reverie tickets including 3-Day GA Passes, Pre-Party Passes, VIP Upgrades and RV/Car Camping Spots are on sale now. Purchase Solshine: A Music & Arts Reverie 2024 tickets via eTix.

Watch more episodes of Andy Frasco’s World Saving Podcast exclusively at Volume.com.