It’s a brisk, damp Wednesday afternoon in early spring 2023, and music lovers from Boise’s four corners are once again braving the Treasure Valley’s dicey March weather to congregate at various venues and witness bands most of them haven’t even heard of. Treefort Music Fest ticketholders ranging from newbies to audiophiles are intent on getting their fix of live music after winter hushed the city’s clubs.
Festivalgoers will oversaturate their eardrums for five days, courtesy of hundreds upon hundreds of featured performers. Indeed, the ever-growing Treefort now resembles something of a concert experience crossed with a hotdog-eating contest. Attendees will feel so bloated from absorbing musical talent that, by the time that the fest wraps Sunday night, they’ll consider hibernation.
Naturally, that feeling will dissipate after a few days. In fact, Treefort trotters will be even more inclined to hit the live-music circuit, having become familiar with more local groups that comprise Boise’s promising yet still-nascent music scene. By and large, they’re as piqued to see homegrown artists from every stripe—indie-rock, folk, reggae and everything in between—as the up-and-coming nationwide talent that anchors the fest and ensures a solid turnout.
One of those 2023 entries, East Coast alternative-rock legends Dinosaur Jr., draw a seemingly equal number of wide-eyed teens as they do graying Gen X-ers while playing on the main stage at Julia Davis Park. However, the ensconced masses aren’t thinking about such trivial matters as age. They’ve ceded themselves to the annual triumph that is Treefort, bopping and smiling as beach balls bounce from the crowd toward the dark clouds that portend rainy days ahead.
Before long, the grounds get muddy and the temperature drops. Regardless, as the crowds buzz from stage to stage at the park and elsewhere downtown, they remain transfixed on the precious, priceless act of discovering new music (and texting friends about it). When the fest concludes, Treefort’s apparatus will immediately shift to 2024’s edition (and repairing the grass). Fans will scrape caked mud off their shoes with aplomb, considering how much bang they got for a few hundred bucks. Ask them if Treefort is worth going to, and the consensus will be a full-throated “Yes!”
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In myriad ways, Treefort is a case study of a music festival done right. By eschewing the distracting, cynical corporate sponsorship that corrodes most every other U.S. music festival, Boise’s outing is an independent-minded tour de force. The other key to its success? Consummate integrity, achieved through an unwavering focus on treating artists and fans alike with respect.
Whether or not Treefort gets in the black, its organizers have resisted the nickle-and-diming, hoodwinking and gouging that are practically ubiquitous at music festivals. The result? Bigger-than-ever crowds from year to year, and an ever-increasing fiscal boost to local vendors occupying food trucks and beer tents.
On a weekday afternoon in late January, with the execution of the 12th annual Treefort Music Fest fully underway, Co-Founder and Festival Director Eric Gilbert takes a short reprieve from his desk to share some of the secrets to its success. Surrounding him is proof of concept that the event he incepted in 2012 with Co-Founders (and Producer) Lori Shandro and Drew Lorona, and later Co-Founder Megan Stoll, has worked and is still working. His office is located in a tidy start-up-style space that, fittingly, used to be the site of a now-defunct corporate eyesore: Office Space.
“The owners of this building considered other offers that would’ve involved razing it,” Gilbert reflects. “This space has so much value to a lot of us, and city leaders agree that it's intrinsic to the economic impact of the city as it grows.”
Outside Gilbert’s door, a team of roughly a dozen focused young adults diligently hammer away at their keyboards, dedicated to various tasks concerning Treefort and Duck Club Entertainment, its companion concert-promotions company. Nary an eye appears to blink; together, they form the quiet, beating heart of the operation.
In the same building is another extension of an artistic endeavor that turned out to be far more ambitious than its originators ever imagined: Treefort Music Hall, a sparkling new venue with a capacity of 1,041 and some of the most pristine acoustics in the Mountain West. Meanwhile, less than 10 blocks away is the old El Korah Shrine, a Treefort linchpin that Duck Club recently took over and renamed Shrine Social Club.
“We’re for-profit so we can be a lean operation, but we act like a nonprofit because we aren't making decisions around the bottom line as much as around the community,” Gilbert imparts. “The small ownership group of us, and a couple of investors, had to raise some money as we built this. We’re impact investing, but we’re a socially conscious business.”
Gilbert alludes to Treefort’s financially challenging early years—as Shandro mentioned in a conversation in early February. When asked about how many times the festival has turned a profit, she replies with a wry grin: “You're implying there's been profit.”
“Typically, any buffer that we've had, we've reinvested back into the people that work on the festival, the bands and adding more to the festival itself,” she continues. “It takes extra effort and energy to coordinate new opportunities as we have, but it really creates a citywide feeling that everyone is able to get involved.”
All things considered, Treefort’s greatest asset—sprawl—is also its Achilles’ heel. For a city of moderate size, five days of 460-or-so bands playing virtually around the clock within earshot of any establishment downtown is unwieldy. Still, no other entity, commercial or otherwise, has brought Boise together as a community, especially post-COVID. Beyond encompassing local music acts and vendors, Treefort has branched out to include Yogafort, Kidfort, Storyfort, Artfort and more.
“Every ‘fort’ has come about organically, after someone asked how they could work with us,” Shandro notes. “Even if you're not a music fan, we have a presence that everyone in the city can dip into.”
Ask any musician in Boise, and they’ll back up Gilbert’s and Shandro’s claims.
“No matter the genre, form, or expression, Treefort week in Boise brings all of us together and keeps pushing our rapidly growing city into the future,” says Carson Russell of Boise rock band and regular participant Ealdor Bealu.
Seconding that notion is Carolyn “Cariies” Ries of Sunsmith, a local reggae-jam band that’s playing the festival for the first time this year.
“It wasn't until I attended Treefort for the first time that I truly caught a glimpse into the vast array of creative people that reside here in this little city,” she remarks.
Meanwhile, Shadrach Tuck of Boise bands Chief Broom and TRAUMA KIT, as well as his own Mishap Records, underscores how much the festival impacted his growth as a young musician.
“I’ve been playing Treefort music fest since I was 16 or 17 years old. It was fundamental to connecting and shaping me as a musician,” he attests. “At this festival, I've formed lasting friendships and memories that have shaped me as a native Boisean, a human and a dreamer.”
Thanks to the residents of this city coming together—and all-too-rare phenomenon in an increasingly fragmented world—a pipe dream has become a dream come true. Twelve years after it was born, Treefort is the City of Trees’ gift that keeps on giving.
1. “We aren't making decisions around the bottom line as much as around the community.”
2. “[Treefort Music Fest] really creates a citywide feeling that everyone is able to get involved.”
3. “At this festival, I've formed lasting friendships and memories that have shaped me.”
