Keepin' it blue

POLSON— After three years of working to establish itself, the Flathead Lake Blues Festival is well on its way to becoming a staple of summertime in Polson.

On Aug. 16 and 17, blues bands, vendors and music lovers from across the western United States convened in at Salish Point in Polson to enjoy music, dancing and a gorgeous view of Flathead Lake.

“We’ve definitely grown a lot this year,” said David Venters, treasurer of the nonprofit organization Festivals on the Flathead, the group that organizes the event. “For the past two years we’ve been a one-day, three-band festival over the weekend of July 4, but we realized that this weekend—right between the car show and the Flathead River Rodeo—is the perfect weekend to occupy. This year we’ve attracted a lot more people who aren’t coming into town for family barbeques, like they do over the holiday, and we’ve placed ourselves between other big blues festivals around Montana, so we attract some of those crowds, too.”

Venters, along with friends Carol and Steve Lozar, first conceived the idea of a regular blues festival on Flathead Lake. Since then, Festivals on the Flathead has gained an incredible amount of members—all of whom have dedicated themselves to the success of the blues festival.

“We’re really trying to build an organization here,” said Venters. “We want a group of volunteers who meet once a month, then bi-weekly come January and then every week as we get closer to August. We have a pretty good group here. A lot of them have been here for years, they do all of our design work and band booking, they really work hard toward our goals.”

The stated goals for Festivals on the Flathead are to create a regular music festival in Polson that will attract more tourism, and to help renovate the park on Salish Point.

“When I first came to Salish Point I wondered why we didn’t have an amphitheater so we could hold events here,” commented Venters. “We want to try to dig out that big hill and terrace it so that we have grassy benches, and we want a permanent stage. It would really be perfect for the space—you could have Shakespeare in the Park, concerts, any number of events right against that beautiful lake.”

The 2013 Flathead Lake Blues Festival is certainly a hallmark of the group’s growth toward those goals. In preceding years, the festival has only attracted a few vendors, and fewer sponsors. In 2012, Festivals on the Flathead ended up in debt following the festival. This year, to the contrary, the festival received sponsorship from over 40 businesses and donors. Over the two day festival, 11 bands performed for hundreds of visiting spectators.

“The community support helped our growth a lot,” said Venters. “We had the Lenzes offer camping next to Riverside, and we’ve developed a good partnership with the Polson Triathlon. We hope to one day own this weekend in Polson.”

Although Venters also expressed interest in expanding the festival more in the future, for now Festivals on the Flathead is content with the success they’ve had.

“We want to keep it to a two-day festival, that’s pretty do-able for right now,” said Venters. “And we want to keep the music blues, because blues is at the heart of all music.”