20 years ago.
Wow.
It wasn't called the HFS-tival that year, in fact it wasn't even our idea. The Fairfax County Department of Parks and Recreation called and said "Hey, we're having a family friendly fun Fourth of July festival, would you like to help promote it and bring some bands?"
So we did. The Tragically Hip, The Pursuit of Happiness, Concrete Blonde, Neal Cody, Winter Hours and a couple others I can't recall.
It was $5 a carload. It was fun. We decided to do it again.
The next year there were bigger bands and a much bigger crowd.
It was more fun. We decided to do it again.
It wasn't until year four, when the
Painful decision to move to RFK Stadium was made that the name HFS-tival was created. There was a lot of of arguing for and against the big stadium. After all stadium shows suck.
So we had to be bigger than the venue. We promoted it "We're taking over RFK for the HFS-tival 20 bands for 20 bucks." Sold out in 53 minutes. It didn't matter
Who the bands were, the audience wanted to be there for the scene, the
Party, the event of the summer.
But the bands were great. INXS, The Posies, Iggy Pop, Stereo MCs, Belly, Matthew Sweet and X. And More.
2 stages, inside and out, rides, beer, games and Gak! We had a Gak pit – remember that stuff? Nickelodeon sent us cases of it and we filled a bath tub – and people reached deep down in looking for prizes.
We provided free booth space to about 50 progressive non Profit organizations to hand out info and talk to the people. It was awesome.
So we decided to do it again.
And again and again. It was imitated dupilcated and made a LOT of money for the station.
Until the Year there was no HFS.
But this year there is another HFS-tival. Sometime in September. At Merriweather, promoted by WHFS2 which can be heard online or via the HD2 Channel of 94.7 fm in DC.
Tickets have been on sale for a while now, great seats still available.
No rides, no games, No Gak.