Organizers of the Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit – a three-day festival held in Asheville, NC – have announced that plans for a 2014 festival have been cancelled and that the festival has been put on hold.
Organizers of the 2013 event note that ‘the success necessary to sustain the venture has eluded us.” This year, they would have faced new competition for concert-goer’s dollars from Moogfest 2014.
Here’s the official announcement:
It’s true. We’ve decided to press the ‘pause’ button on Mountain Oasis for 2014 in Asheville.
It’s been a difficult decision. We’re very proud of what we’ve created and produced over the past four years in Asheville: Moogfest 2010 – 2012 and Mountain Oasis 2013. The enthusiasm and response from those who attended and supported those festivals was amazing – a true inspiration for all of us here at AC.
Unfortunately, the success necessary to sustain the venture has eluded us. And many of the challenges we have faced in producing the festival have increased. It feels more and more like we’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. So, after four years of considerable investment and hard work, we’ve decided to put Mountain Oasis on hold, while we pursue some exciting opportunities elsewhere.
We want to thank all of the passionate, supportive fans who have attended the festivals, the wonderful artists who have played, and the many enthusiastic supporters in the community who have helped and encouraged us.
We love Asheville. After a quarter of a century as Asheville’s major concert producer, we’ll continue booking all of the great shows at the Orange Peel and working with everyone at the US Cellular Center to bring top artists and shows to town. And perhaps, at some point in the future, we will have an opportunity to create another festival that highlights this ‘mountain oasis.’
In the meantime, we would like to encourage festival lovers to attend some of our other festivals. The Big Ears Festival in Knoxville (only 3 weeks away on March 28 – 30) includes adventurous artists who have played Moogfest and Mountain Oasis in the past (like Tim Hecker, Oneohtrix Point Never, Julia Holter, to name a few) alongside Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, the National’s Bryce Dessner, the composer Steve Reich and rock legends like Television, John Cale, Marc Ribot and others. Of course, there’s Bonnaroo in June. And, in mid-July, there’s the Forecastle Festival in Louisville.
We have some new surprises in store as well, so stay in touch.
We’ll be seeing you around…
Cheers!
The AC Entertainment / Mountain Oasis Team
They took Moog out and they failed.
Too many cooks. Not enough eaters.
To be fair, Moog Music were the ones who revoked their permission to use the “Moog” brand name from AC Entertainment. They supposedly thought that the festival was losing its focus, though I had a great time at Moogfest 2012. Unaware that Moog Music was in the process of re-booting it as a giant five day festival, I’d imagine AC probably wanted to continue putting on Moogfest but under a different name. They probably don’t want to compete with Moogfest without the brand name in Bob’s town.
One more thing (from the Mountain Oasis site): “All sales are final. No refunds or exchanges.”
Too many people using 303s!
Here’s hoping they didn’t close up shop simply because they didn’t have much ticket demand SIX MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT.
It’s fair to say that Moogfest may have affected MOASIS. However, I think that these were truly two different festivals serving two slightly different demographics. Room does exist for both but care must be given to focus on the core demographics instead of trying to compete.
Personally, I’m thirlled with what they are trying to create with Moogfest but will be a little sad when there is no MOASIS come fall but I was never going to buy a MOASIS ticket more than 6 months in advance. Life can change a lot in 6 months.