We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Echo Rose Rising a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Echo Rose Rising, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
As a full time touring artist, I have the opportunity to engage with a variety of creatives and passionate individuals throughout my travels. I often perform in lineups with local and touring bands so my network of creatives nationwide runs deep. I have also been blown away by the beauty embedded in the nomadic community I’ve discovered while living on the road. We create communities while traveling in our mobile homes, scattering and reconnecting while each chasing our own unique career paths. I am now two years into hosting an annual Indie-Music Festival in Salida, Colorado called Rose Fest. The festival has been a culmination of all my communities and passions merging and I was impressed how seamlessly the artists and friends I’ve met on the road rose to the occasion of Rose Fest to create the most magical weekend imaginable. I’m not surprised that I stumbled into this position of festival founder, creating something out of nothing without even giving myself the time to realize the undertaking I was committing myself to. I’d dreamt of hosting annual festivals back when I was a child and sure enough, found myself diving into the task two decades later.
The biggest risk was financial. I was teaching myself the art of event planning as I was experiencing it and I was tackling the planning stages as a team of one. As a full time artist myself, I prioritized compensating the bands well. I optimistically offered up a sizable budget to bands at the start of my planning season and worked tirelessly to match that budget over the months to come. I found support in local businesses in the form of sponsorships and donations but still needed most of my revenue to come from ticket sales. Since many of our tickets were sold at the door, it was impossible to predict exactly what my budget would be for Rose Fest 2023. Up until the last month, there was a looming knowledge that I could be losing 2k on this event. To keep pushing amidst the stress of the financial risk was frustrating. I was logging hundreds of planning hours that were not only unpaid but a potential net loss. In the end, I was able to pay all of the contributors including the media team and stage management team although I was only able to confirm this after the event was over. I finally think I have a better grasp on a sensible planning timeline for next year’s event and hope to pace myself throughout the year to create a smoother work flow with less financial risk involved. My plan is to focus on outreach for sponsor partnerships early in the year and choose a budget accordingly to avoid relying on ticket sales.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
There are many interwoven components of my creative career that each fall under my artist brand of Echo Rose Rising. I’ve been performing as solo indie loop artist for five years and have been touring the country full time for two years. I’ve booked myself shows in 13 states, performing at weddings, colleges, venues, festivals, bars and restaurants. My art, however, in its truest form is performed in remote locations as an Adventure Musician. I bring my instruments skiing, rafting, climbing and repelling to create unique experiences for listeners. I had the opportunity to perform in a floating music festival this year and also a backcountry ski festival for femme identifying folk where I was snowmobiled into an aspen grove and performed on a self-made platform while the skiers hiked past. I have many more ambitions for remote performances including aspirations to perform in a hot air balloon. The floating festival truly resonated with my brand, as my vocals echoed off the canyon walls.
My band, Echo Rose Rising, presents an annual indie music festival called Rose Fest in Salida, CO. This has been a beautiful opportunity to weave more meaningful work into my art. The space I created at Rose Fest gave community members a platform to share their passions in the form of workshops, classes and a discussion panel. Over the years I hope to involve and support nonprofits directed towards making the outdoors more inclusive and accessible.
Echo Rose Rising has been an opportunity to merge my many passions. To explore, collaborate, bring together, and share meaningful moments while also supporting myself financially has been a dream worth fighting for.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
It’s rewarding for me to be able to hold space for an audience to be present and mindful. It’s easy to forget the impact my art has on people and get lost in the business side of my art career. However, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is receiving positive feedback from an audience member about their reaction to my performance. We often don’t have opportunities to hear about these experiences and sometimes it takes a year for these stories to make it back to me. I can’t imagine my life without music, listening to music is an emotionally grounding and reflective experience for me and being an audience member at a live performance helps me feel connected to community. I’m grateful to be able to offer creative and reflective experiences and I always love hearing about the positive impacts they bring.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I first moved onto the road and started touring full time in 2021, I experienced a plethora of issues with my vehicles. There were several months that I needed to drop off either my truck, my trailer or both to be serviced before I could be mobile again. My worst break down took place a week before I was about to embark on an ambitious tour route across Arizona to perform ten shows in eight days with 24 hours of driving. I had my trailer towed into storage, rented a two seater Fiat and pitched a tent at campsites each night after my shows to make sure I was still able to complete the tour I’d worked so hard to plan.
Contact Info:
- Website: echoroserising.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/echoroserising/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EchoRoseRising
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@echoroserising/
- Other: Rose Fest IG: https://www.instagram.com/rose_fest_onthemove/ Rose Fest Website: echoroserising.com/rose-fest Bands In Town: https://www.bandsintown.com/a/15508974?came_from=206
Image Credits
Todd Muchow, Colorado High Country Photography, Divided Sky Photography, Brien Godby