It takes a lot to organize and fund a music festival. But it takes even more to ensure the safety of the attendees and provide an inclusive environment for everyone. For Monica Griffin, promoting unity and inclusivity at entertainment events, while also reducing the potential for harm, isn’t just a passion. It’s a career. The co-founder of the Bellingham Arts and Music Festival, better known as BAMF!, sat down with us to talk about the creation of the festival, ways to make the festival experience better and future aspirations in the music industry.
The festival originated in an interesting way, born out of Griffin’s Fairhaven College Senior Project. A recent 2017 graduate, Griffin studied music management and audio engineering. Partnering with fellow Fairhaven graduate Olas Perpich, they decided to create a music festival with focus on launching an event that was sustainable for both the environment and people.
Although initial discussions regarding the formation of the festival took place in 2015, it wasn’t until December of 2016 when they began to task out the workload. They found out it takes a lot to make a festival run, especially a festival that combines multiple mediums to create an immersive and inclusive environment. With a set date of May 6 and 7, the inaugural Bellingham Arts and Music Festival was on the way. It would take place at The Lookout Arts Quarry in Alger, on 61 acres of wooded land containing vast swathes of cedar, maple and cottonwood forests.
Griffin looks back on the festival’s formation period with fondness. At the same time, she recalls the stress that comes with building a production such as BAMF! from the ground up.
“Obviously one of the biggest challenges is that it was very hard to throw a festival in just four months,” Griffin says. “Moving forward, we now realize how to go about certain aspects in different ways to ensure we have more time.”
At its core, BAMF! was created with the intention of combining performance art, visual art and music, with social justice, inclusivity and immersive workshops. In 2017, 45 musical acts performed and there were a number of art installations as well.
Griffin says the festival is on for 2018 and that this year they want to focus on making the space accommodating, inclusive to all and a platform for social change. In order to do so, this year will have less music and more opportunities to attend collaborative social workshops on a variety of different topics.
“We want our festival experience to be different than the norm,” Griffin says. “Both accessibility and inclusivity are important to us, and we want BAMF! to be remembered as a positive and immersive experience for everyone that attends. Music festivals can be very exclusionary for a variety of reasons and we don’t want BAMF! to be that way.”
Griffin cites cost as a contributing factor to the lack of diversity and representation seen at most music festivals. Due to high costs, lots of festivals are seen as classist and don’t provide a space for everyone, Griffin says. But, with BAMF! they want to flip the script, so this will not be the case.
“It’s interesting, we have truly found it is hard to throw a festival that is both inclusive and affordable,” Griffin says. “But as BAMF! continues to progress we hope to get closer to our goal. For example, in order to create our line-up we get talent from around the Greater Pacific Northwest and surrounding areas, not just Bellingham.”
Griffin can’t stress enough how important equal representation is, not just to the BAMF! organizing team, but the community they have established as a result of throwing this one of a kind festival.
“I enjoy seeing different groups of people up there on stage. It can provide us with a different and valuable perspective, and even different kinds of music and art,” Griffin says. “For example, when we have people of color, people from the LGBTQ+ community and women perform, it can give us insight into their world and what their life experience may be like.”
In addition to creating and running the Bellingham Arts and Music Festival, Griffin works for The Shakedown, a local music venue in Bellingham, and is beginning to venture into running live sound. With aspirations of having a career in the arts and entertainment for many years to come, Griffin hopes to compile a vast skill set that will prove useful while moving up in the music industry.
“The upper echelons of the music industry and the audio recording world still mainly consist of men,” Griffin says. “At first, this can make you second guess yourself because you are a different identity but I am determined to succeed in this industry.”
Griffin says representation of multiple identities throughout the entire music industry, and not just the festival scene, is important because when a person looks up on stage at someone who thinks or looks like them, it encourages them in making their career choices too. When they see someone like them accomplishing, they know they can make their dream a reality as well.
