My Trip to the Sisters Folk Festival

One of my favorite things is seeing live music. When I first got Squeaky, I imagined a big part of my adventures would be traveling to music festivals. Due to Covid and a few other factors, that hasn’t really happened, but this month I finally got to make that happen.

I’d heard about the Sisters Folk festival for years and it was always on my radar, but I never made it happen. So this year, with my big travel plans on hold due to Olive, I thought I’d give volunteering at the Sisters Folk Festival a try.

Folk music and strong singer/songwriter vibe is actually my favorite type of music. I knew two of the performers. Mary Gauthier and Ruthie Foster are both favorites. Events like this also offer the opportunity to develop new favorites.

I figured volunteering would be a great way to attend as a solo. It would give me the opportunity to meet other people, have a bit of a purpose and structure. Plus, with just two shifts, I’d get a full festival pass. I signed up to do bike valet.

Signing up to volunteer was easy. Finding a camping site was a bit harder. Sisters is a small town and there is one campground right in the city limits. That campground was fully booked for the festival a year in advance. The city has some pretty strict rules about not allowing people to sleep in their vehicles on the street.

 I finally found a place on Boondockers Welcome but it was 6 miles outside of town. As my only option, I requested a stay and figured I’d bike into town if I had to. As luck would have it, just about a month before the festival was to begin, a local church, within walking distance of everything, offered their parking lot for dry RV parking. I booked it right away and it turned out to be the perfect thing.

I came up to Sisters a night early, so I did end of staying one night at the Boondockers Welcome place. My hosts had a beautiful piece of property on the edge of public lands and even offered 30 amp electric hook up. I was only there for about 14 hours. Once I saw how far out it was from town, I was glad I made the decision to pay for a few nights in town.

I knew the festival would not be a place to bring Olive, so I got a pet sitter for her at home. I kept a pretty close eye on the weather and since it didn’t look like it was going to be too hot, decided to bring Tucker along. She did amazingly well. I was so happy with her.  

The drive to Sisters is about three hours from Portland. To get there, you have to go through an area that was burned during last year’s wildfires. It’s hard to see the once green forests, now just hills of black sticks. The towns are rebuilding. There was a lot of construction on road.

I arrived at my Boondockers Welcome site just as the sun was about to set on Thursday night. My hosts welcomed me with some literature about Sisters, including the festival schedule.  I took Tucker out for a short walk on her leash and settled in, circling the different performances I wanted to see.

The next morning, I left pretty early because I wanted to get a good spot at the church parking lot. I was one of the first to arrive and I asked the volunteers running the lot for a shady spot. They put me right next to them, which turned out to be wonderful.

When you attend an event like a festival or conference, you automatically have something in common with the other people attending, so there’s things to talk about and connect over. I immediately bonded with Mary and Bob, who were smitten with Tucker. We talked about which acts we planned to see. They gave me some tips about the best way to enjoy the festival.

Sisters is a pretty small town. You can walk from end to end in about 20 minutes. The festival is spread out at seven venues around town: all outdoors under tents. Each of the artists plays two or three sets at various locations, so if you miss your favorite one night, they’re probably playing another set the next afternoon. With so many artists and so many venues, I knew I wouldn’t be able to see everything.

My first night I headed to the Village Green and spent the entire night there. Mary Gauthier is a favorite singer/songwriter and I wanted to catch her set. The other two artists, Willy Porter and Judith Hill, I hadn’t heard before, but I enjoyed them both.

I volunteered during the day on Saturday and Sunday, which was fun. I worked with one other volunteer and we parked bikes for people coming to the shows. The days were pretty warm and I was happy to be doing somewhat physical work. The only bummer was, as a bike valet, I didn’t get so see much of the afternoon music. Sunday, I was working with a couple, so I was able to slip away twice to see a bit of two acts I really wanted to see. Max Gomez and Emily Scott Robinson . 

Attending the Sisters Folk Festival All Alone

Although I do travel solo, I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t think I’ve ever even attended a concert by myself. For sure, all the time traveling alone the past few years really got me ready for this. I only felt lonely once. Saturday night, after wandering into two different venues where I didn’t particularly care for the music, I felt a little lonely and a little lost. I’d wished I had a friend or someone to check in with, see where they were at, maybe join up with them. Instead, I walked back to my van, snuggled with Tucker for a few minutes and headed back out again to try a few different venues.

I was making my way toward one venue, when I heard a beautiful voice echoing into the clear, cold night. I walked into a tent to hear the end of Judith Hill’s performance. Judith Hill was a back-up singer for Michael Jackson and was featured in the documentary  20 Feet From Stardom. I caught the end of her set. Even though I was sitting alone in a big venue, I didn’t feel alone. Maybe it had to do with a year of being used to staying six feet apart, or just me being more comfortable on my own as I travel solo, but my loneliness subsided and I was just happy to be listening to live music and such a wonderful talent surrounded by people all loving it as much as I was.

When Judith’s set ended, I started to head toward the big tent where the Zydeco band CJ Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band was playing. Again, I was stopped by music coming out into the street– wild sounding bluegrass band. The venue was at capacity, but I was able to stand outside and watch The Hogslop String Band through the fence.  These five guys really knew how to put on a show, bouncing around on stage, old-time string music with a party flair. It was a delight to watch them and watch the audience response to them through the fence. It even looked like they had a few groupies, which I totally did not expect at the Sisters Folk Festival.

I finally made it to the Zydeco band and hung out for about half their set. Many people were up and dancing, but I’d sprained by ankle a few weeks before on another camping trip, so didn’t jump up to join them.

Sunday, the final day, I was again volunteering during all of the music performances—next year I’ll have to plan differently. But this location was super close to two of the venues and I had two other volunteers, so we could spell one another and check out some of the acts. I also really enjoyed the couple I volunteered with. We had a fun time together.

After the shift was over, I headed back to where Squeaky was parked and visited with my neighbors/new friends at the church parking lot. I had Tucker out on her leash and people passing by stopped to pet her and say hello. Having a kitten is a great ice-breaker at an event like this.

I put Tucker in her backpack just as the sun was setting and walked around Sisters, stopping at a shop for ice cream.

Overall, I had an amazing time at the Sisters Folk Festival. It was a great experience for a solo traveler and even though I did have a few moments where I felt lonely, I knew it was a feeling and it would pass.

That’s the thing about solo travel. You might get lonely from time to time. But heck, if you’re with a partner or friend, you might get annoyed or angry at them, too, right? I’d highly recommend making plans to go to an event or a place you’ve always wanted to visit as a solo.