Ogden Music Festival set for new location at Business Depot Ogden
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- A scene from the 2022 Ogden Music Festival. This year’s festivities are set for June 2-4, 2023, at 600 N. Depot Drive in Business Depot Ogden.
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- A scene from the 2022 Ogden Music Festival. This year’s festivities are set for June 2-4, 2023, at 600 N. Depot Drive in Business Depot Ogden.
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- A scene from the 2022 Ogden Music Festival. This year’s festivities are set for June 2-4, 2023, at 600 N. Depot Drive in Business Depot Ogden.
OGDEN — A mainstay of Ogden summers will be in a new home — at least, temporarily — this weekend.
The 15th annual Ogden Music Festival, which is presented by Ogden Friends of Acoustic Music, is slated for Friday through Sunday and had originally been set for its usual location at Fort Buenaventura Park.
However, according to OFOAM co-director Reba Nissen, Mother Nature had other plans.
“We’ve had to relocate because of flooding at Fort Buenaventura,” she said. “We looked high and low — mostly high — and we found a spot at the Business Depot Ogden. We’re affectionately calling it ‘Fort BDO.’ It’s a beautiful field with sweeping views of the Wasatch Mountains.”
She said there was contemplation of moving the dates or even canceling the event altogether.
“We just didn’t want to lose this amazing lineup,” she said.
With a resolve to keep the festival on schedule, organizers started looking for an alternative location.
Nissen said the group has been in worse time crunches to move the festival before because of flooding.
“It was about six weeks,” she said. “I’ve been with the organization since our festival in 2010. In 2011, it flooded and we only had three weeks. Six weeks, even though it feels like a scramble, actually was a little bit more time.”
However, she said the additional three weeks still didn’t make finding a new venue on short notice much easier this year.
“Ogden is popular and there’s a lot of great places here, but they’re all booked up,” she said. “The fairgrounds was booked. All of the other Weber County parks were booked.”
During a visit to evaluate the viability of the Ogden Nature Center, they found a good temporary home for the festival.
“While we were driving around out there, we found some big lots at the Business Depot Ogden,” she said. “They welcomed us. They helped us troubleshoot and figure things out. … Ogden City folks have been amazing to help us figure this out. It’s a site that had no water or power.”
Nissen said the group didn’t want to compromise and get into a substandard venue for the festival.
“We found some other beautiful locations that didn’t allow camping, didn’t allow different food/beverage vendors or didn’t have the parking, which that’s been tricky but we found ample parking,” she said. “Also, we wanted to keep it in Ogden because it’s the Ogden Music Festival. We’re pleased that we’ve been able to still have all of the things that people love about the Ogden Music Festival.”
This year’s lineup includes John Craigie, Danielle Ponder, Thee Sacred Souls, Pompe ‘n Honey, The West Road, Chatham Rabbits, Miko Marks, Della Mae, Dan Tyminski Band, Kate MacLeod, National Park Radio, Los Texmaniacs featuring La Marisoul, and Pixie & The Partygrass Boys.
Festivities will begin at 4 p.m. Friday with the Ogden-Weber Chamber of Commerce holding a ribbon-cutting at the new location, 600 N. Depot Drive.
Nissen added there’s much more beyond the live performances.
“We’ve got a lot of kids activities,” she said. “We’ve got our instrument petting zoo. … We have camping on-site and kids 16 and under get in free to everything we do because our mission is really to get instruments in their hands.”
She said there will also be workshops available and jam sessions.
For more information, visit https://ofoam.org/ogden-music-festival/2023-festival-info.