Hello Montrose Music Festival Supporters & Sponsors!

We're coming into the FIFTH year of the Montrose Music Festival (July 25, 26, and 27, 2025). We've been asked to bring a lot of various arts and acts to the festival by our friends and fans. So far, we have only been operating on funds donated by local business sponsors and local anonymous farmers.

Partly because of the request to bring certain artists to the festival, as well as the majority of the financial weight being put on local sponsors and donors, we've decided to expand our community of supporters to help increase the festival budget. The ultimate goal is for the festival to become more self-sufficient.

Your donation will speak volumes to the community this festival is all about. We also want to give a special shout-out to a few of the previous years' key donors and supporters: Big J's Roadhouse (Humboldt), Sunset Pawn Shop (Sioux Falls), and Ben's Brewery (Yankton).

This festival wouldn't be possible without YOU. Your donation enables us to bring in more artists and a larger variety of talent. Plus, it lets us dream even bigger about all that this festival could be. So far, all the money from previous years has been put back into the festival.

By investing in our festival, you're investing in:

1. COMMUNITY: We're building intentional community across artists and listeners as they're drawn together through music and storytelling. We strive to create authentic community where everyone feels at home.

2. SONGWRITERS: We're striving to help independent singer-songwriters make a decent living. While you probably won't hear any of our acts on your local radio station, their talent and heart shine through. Plus, their passion and authenticity set them apart. You're helping us pay artists enough to cover their travel expenses and have some money on top of that.

3. SMALL TOWNS: We intentionally have this festival in small town South Dakota to draw attention to other small towns like Montrose. All too often, small towns across America are falling apart and losing their grocery stores, gas stations, and swimming pools. We strive to drive customer business back into small towns by encouraging people to leave their big towns and go to a farmer's market, eat dinner at a small town restaurant, fill up a tank of gas in a small town, or buy fresh eggs and groceries from a local farmer). Currently, all of our fundraising has gone back into continuing to make the festival happen. Eventually, we hope to have enough ticket and merchandise sales to give back to the Montrose park and pool.

4. AN UPSIDE DOWN VISION. Our festival intentionally looks different from most other festivals. The majority of our events and activities are free. We don't center our festival around a main stage or scheduled line up. Instead, this festival is an early iteration and proof that we can go about the music business in a more community focused way. It's helping build up to an artist advocacy network to revitalize and re-energize singer-songwriters who are burnt out with the traditional music business and touring expectations.

Feel free to check out www.montrosemusicfestival.org for the latest information. We're regularly updating the website to include new artists, classes, and events.

Festivals are CrAzY expensive and require a lot of behind the scenes work to make it happen (running around, gas, advertising, staff/musician kitchen, website design/edits, and printing), in addition to hiring and paying our talent. So far, the vast majority of this work has fallen on the festival founder and organizer, Matt Fockler, along with his niece Tara. Your contribution helps lighten their load.

Please reach out to Matt Fockler if you'd prefer to make a direct donation outside of GoFundMe.