WinterWonderGrass Celebrates Ten Years

Scotty Stoughton founded the bluegrass-centric festival WinterWonderGrass a decade ago, but long before that, in the late ’90s, he was fronting the reggae-rock band Sucker. He remembers meeting Mark Vann, founding member of Leftover Salmon, at a music festival that Sucker was playing. Stoughton invited the banjo player to sit in with his band, and Vann, who died from cancer in 2002, returned the favor and had Stoughton sit in with Leftover Salmon.

“It was the first time I saw the power and the humility of the bluegrass community, and what that scene exemplifies is really spreading the love,” Stoughton says. “They get on stage and invite their friends up and give them solos. The world I came from was that we played our set and it was all about us. I was immediately drawn to this new world of the bluegrass community.”

In the early 2000s, Stoughton freestyle-rapped with bluegrass veteran Sam Bush at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in front of 10,000 people. He began to immerse himself in Colorado's bluegrass community, going to see Leftover Salmon, String Cheese Incident and Yonder Mountain String Band while also freestyling with other bluegrass acts in addition to fronting his other band, Bonfire Dub.

Stoughton went on to become general manager of State Bridge, a 500-seat amphitheater in Bond, where he started Campout for the Cause, a music festival that benefits nonprofits, in 2008. Four years later, he decided he wanted to highlight the bluegrass community with a new music festival after fostering connections with both local and out-of-state bluegrass bands, including Greensky Bluegrass and the Infamous Stringdusters.

“I said, 'Fuck it, let's do something outside in the winter,’” he recalls. “And I was so tired of going to beer festivals with horrible music and then festivals and concerts with shitty beer.”

Stoughton held the first WinterWonderGrass in a parking lot in Edwards, then held it in Avon for years before moving it to its current location in Steamboat Springs; he's also expanded it to locations in California and Vermont. He says he founded the festival with the intention of booking people who would still sound good if the power went out.

He notes that the timing of WinterWonderGrass not only makes for a unique experience, but also serves to weed out the crowd.

“The winter is a great equalizer,” he explains. “Most people who go to outdoor concerts in the winter, people think they’re crazy. Okay, that cuts 50 percent out right there. The other 50 percent are like, ‘That's awesome! I love skiing. I love being outdoors. I love getting crazy.' It’s like the Burning Man effect a little bit: 'Let's go to a 105-degree desert for a week.'”

Stoughton says he figured that if the festival's staff, volunteers, artists and the crowd were all prepared, excited, mindful and looking out for each other, there would be a better level of vibration.

“Our intention is more purpose, less party,” he says. “That doesn't mean don't party your ass off, but I want to hold our attendees to a higher level of accountability than any other festival. I want them to participate and contribute in a positive manner, because that will undoubtedly and tangibly create this ripple effect.”

The lineup for this year’s festival, which runs from Friday, February 25, to Sunday, February 27, in Steamboat Springs, includes Trampled by Turtles, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, the Wood Brothers, Yonder Mountain String Band, Kitchen Dwellers, the Travelin’ McCourys, the War and Treaty, Molly Tuttle and more.

“Our genre is not huge, so I don't have thousands of bands that can sell a lot of tickets at my fingertips,” Stoughton says. “We've got kind of a limited bucket — or a tight family, if you will — which is great. But I'm always thinking, ‘How do I go outside the box and mix it up, yet how do I stay true to the bands that were there with us at the beginning?’ And then, 'How do I support bands that become too big to play for us anymore? And then how do I bring in the younger bands?' That's always on my mind.

“I think this year is one of the most creative lineups we've ever put together," he continues. "I've had some criticism that there aren't as many bluegrass bands as usual, and I totally welcome that. While we're a bluegrass festival, [we also have] roots and Americana. It can be anything that sounds good. Like I said, if they can play when the power is off, and on an acoustic instrument, that's our formula.”

He points out Friday's headliner, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, in particular as a very welcome addition to the WinterWonderGrass family this year.

“[Lukas Nelson] is a really incredible human, and his message is very positive,” Stoughton says. “He's very grounded. His band is incredible. My job is to turn people on to new music and to advance our scene and just evolve. Sometimes you have to contract to expand.”

Nelson, who’s been writing material for a new album, says his band's approach to live performance is to “really just try and create the most dynamic and emotional set that we can. We pick and choose songs from all over our career and just try and build a good groove and a good pace, so that people can come away from the show having had what I hope was an inspiring experience.”

In preparing for the festival, there are five days to build what is essentially a small city — with twenty tents, four stages, kid zones, VIP areas, bars, seating, fire pits and backstage areas — and then wrap it in fencing, Stoughton says.

“Five days to come into a site covered in snow and build the city — it's really incredible,” he adds, noting that it has snowed every year for the festival. While there have been a few really cold days, like zero degrees in a blizzard, the temperature has usually oscillated between about 20 and 35 degrees.

“Half of our tents are heated, so you go from watching the main stage outside and you go to one of the raucous three side-tent stages," Stoughton says. “At the same time, they're raging and they're heated, and then you can go outside and dance back into the tent. So you're moving around, and that's a really great hedge against the weather.”

While the musicians tolerate playing outside in the cold, some of them embrace it more than others, he says. “But we have a huge heating package on stage, and we've really figured it out so that when you're up there, you've got like, two direct heaters on you. I think the tuning [of the instruments] is the toughest. You’ve really got to be staying in tune. I don't think the bands get cold when you're moving around, and we're talking high-speed picking.”

When WinterWonderGrass started a decade ago, the capacity was 1,500. Over the years, it’s grown to 5,000.

“I don't want to go any bigger,” Stoughton says. “My philosophy is, let's do something that works for the community and that fits in the footprint of locations that are very environmentally protective, understandably so. And that's our ethos, as well. We leave every area cleaner than we found it, no matter where we go. And so 5,000 is a really good number to be slightly profitable, take care of the bands, keep our ticket prices in line and be set up for success.”

WinterWonderGrass begins Friday, February 25, and ends Sunday, February 27, Upper Knoll Lot, 2160 Mount Werner Circle, Steamboat Springs. Get ticket, lineup, lodging and schedule information at winterwondergrass.com.