Reno’s OffBeat Music Festival: Small-scale and Curated by Design

Reno’s OffBeat Music Festival celebrated its 10^th year this October. With a wide array of artists gracing multiple stages in a concentrated, walkable area, the festival presents local, regional and national artists ranging from brand-new to up-and-coming to right-on-the-edge-of-breaking-big. Staged in the lively Brewery District, OffBeat presents something for most every musical taste. The festival’s impressive lineup is spread across three days, October 2-4. Co-founder and organizer Flip Wright took a quick break from planning this year’s festival to speak with me about the festival’s beginnings, its development, and exciting plans for the future. — BK

The OffBeat Festival has been a yearly event since 2015. How did it get started?
It was a confluence of people meeting each other. We were at a Flaming Lips concert; one of us had a suite at a hotel nearby. After the show a bunch of people ended up at the suite, and just started to talk. I met a guy who was a local promoter at the time. He had some experience in music promotion, and I’m an ad guy. I own an agency and have a marketing background and a general love of music and music discovery.

We both said, “What Reno needs is a festival a la South by Southwest, one that’s venue-based, where people can roam around to different bars.” Reno is not really set up for the traditional “festival in a big field” kind of a thing, and none of us were particularly interested in talking about that anyway.

Our third partner at the time was a local musician, and he brought the musician side [to the concept]. He also ran a nonprofit here in town, so he [knew something about] raising money. So the three of us came together as the initial team. Today I am the sole remaining of the original three. By [virtue] of risk tolerance, I’m the one who has stuck with it, and here we are.

Speaking of risk, what’s the biggest peril in mounting a festival like this?
I always like to joke: “Ask anyone who’s in sales to try to create a festival where you book bands that no one’s heard of, and try to sell tickets for that.” That is very difficult.

But you’re making it work…
Yes. And I think it’s a combination of things. When we started the festival, we made sure that we had some local bands on the roster, bands that we knew that people would want to come out and see. We had to find artists that we knew would be a hit. And we tried to build each successive year, taking the best of what we have locally.

Every now and then you get lucky. There will be a band that you’ve heard of and that you love, but that isn’t necessarily mainstream. But they’re big enough that they can draw some folks. You get to throw those in the mix, and you keep adding those. And now after 10 years, people trust our brand enough that they’ll say, “The thing I like the most about OffBeat is that even though I don’t know a lot of the bands, I know that it’s really curated. I know that I could walk into any [venue] and hear something that I find amazing.”

Yeah, we pride ourselves on that.

Against that backdrop, how has the character of the festival changed over the years?
It really hasn’t changed very much. No one’s become a millionaire from this thing; it really is a passion project, through and through. Every year, break-even is a win for us. [The challenge] is finding bands that are willing to play. We’re more and more involved with agents, and that’s a harder game to play.

They’re the ones that are setting the price, and they’re the ones who are helping good things happen for these artists. To the best of our ability, we have to be able to play that game. Sometimes we can, and sometimes we can’t. Sometimes, unfortunately, we’re offering way less than what they want. But ultimately everything ends up working out, where everyone is happy to be here.

But I think for the most part, our approach has been the same. Maybe the scale of OffBeat has got a little bit bigger; we try different things every year. We’re including a big, free block party component this year, to give more recognition to the venues where the festival is being held.

You mentioned that among the three original movers and shakers, you’re the only one remaining. Are you doing everything?
I’m the tip of the spear for all areas from production to marketing to artist relations to curation, but I have folks who help me in some of those areas. We have an incredible team of volunteers. None of us is getting paid to do this. We have a core group of about 10 people who help me every year.

Speaking of curation, are there any guiding principles that you follow when picking artists to play the festival?
We have to like them! We don’t do favors: “I happen to have this guy routing [near Reno]. Would you put him on your festival?” No. If we don’t like him, we’re not going to put him on the festival.
More than anything, our guiding principle is that we want to make sure that [any artist] who’s involved in OffBeat feels that we not only curate the music, but create an experience that’s really low-friction.

So, for example, every one of our out-of-market artists gets a hotel room. And we give them wristbands so they can go to the whole festival. We have festival hospitality that creates a total VIP experience. A lot of festivals will say, “You get exposure, but we don’t have any money to pay you a guarantee.” Every OffBeat artist gets paid.

We try to make sure that we incorporate a lot of genres so everyone can find something that they like. And we try to be respectful of our venues; we’re not hitting them up for a huge share of the money they’re making during the event. They get to keep what they make, and we do what we do, which is sell a wristband [that gets you into all the venues].

And it’s not expensive, which is probably why people who hear that say, “No wonder you only break even every year!” I’m definitely a softy; I’m not like that hardened personality that you might think of when you think of concert promoters. I probably have failed that class.

How many acts are on the bill this year?
By the time you total our paid and free shows, we usually have around 70 performances, and nine stages. So about 65 to 70 bands. And about 20% of those are local or regional.

How many people do you expect will attend?
Overall capacity for the whole event is 2,500 people; we’re small. The beauty of it is that we don’t have any really big rooms. So over the years, you might have seen Blitzen Trapper or Built to Spill play in a 200-person capacity room. You get to have experiences where you’re seeing bands that really should be playing in front of a thousand people, and you’re getting to see them in a room with 150 people. It’s a cool experience. And the music is perfect for the venues.

What’s your vision for the future of the OffBeat Festival?
What fills my cup, so to speak, is the relationships. Not just with the artists, but with the community. People see a benefit in this and understand what it means to have a music discovery festival of this kind in Reno. Over the past ten years, we’ve brought almost 500 discovery acts to Reno. We have really changed the landscape of [tour] routing; agents are now reaching out to us.

I’m in the process of converting OffBeat from an LLC to a nonprofit. We’re going to call it the Offbeat Music Society. And part of our mission is not only to put on this festival, but also to help turn the area where we’re doing the festival into a real true music discovery entertainment district. We have eight or nine venues that are always activated, [featuring] music that you maybe never have heard of before.

But people are willing to head down there because they know it’s a good place to be. We’re never going to have the gravitational pull of 6th street in Austin or Lower Broadway in Nashville. But a part of our mission is to see if we can help plant the roots for helping position Reno as that place where music discovery can happen. And then we’ll see what good things come from that.