The Live Oak Florida music festival scene has been a fast growing and unexpected phenomena that I was able to witness first hand while growing up in the small town. The fact that a tiny agricultural community saturated in country music and a hunting and fishing lifestyle has become the home of intricate, artistic electronic music events has always been a kind of interesting juxtaposition to me, to say the least. And while many of the town’s residences wouldn’t take much interest in the festivities happening over at the music park, they certainly don’t mind the unprecedented number of consumers that now arrive like clockwork each year, bringing about many positive changes to business owners and citizens alike.
Live Oak Florida Music Festival Grounds & Location
Located on the outskirts of Live Oak Florida, the Spirit if the Suwannee music park encompasses a three-mile stretch of the Suwannee River, as well as 300 acres of parkland. This historic rural park spends most of its time as a quiet family venue, with nature trails and small, quaint playgrounds nestled throughout the property. As a child growing up directly next door to the park, it was naturally a frequent destination for our family on weekends and summer days. The park had been the venue of many small country and bluegrass music festivals for as long as I can remember, and my house was close enough to the park’s stage for us to hear whatever music was being played pretty clearly, so every so often we could hear the twang of acoustic guitars late into the night.
The First BIG Live Oak Florida Music Festival
When the Wanee music festival made its debut in 2005, I remember the whole thing being a bit of a shock to me and my family. As I just mentioned, we were used to the occasional music festival being hosted at the park, but the sight of the crowd that Wanee brought in was a memorable event for a ten-year-old who grew up in a town with a population of under 7,000 people. Cars and trucks towing campers completely clogged the only road into town from our house for hours on end on the days leading up to and directly after the festival. While the adults of my family were fairly disgruntled by the whole thing, I remember just being completely mystified by the prospect of what could possibly bring so many people to our tiny, uneventful town. I became more entranced by these festivals as I listened to the rhythmic, dreamlike music coming from the woods outside my bedroom, and watched as more and more people came and went with each passing year.
It wasn’t until after I had become an adult and moved out of Live Oak that I actually went to one of Suwannee music park’s festivals. I attended Tipper and Friends back in 2016, and it was truly one of the best festival experiences I’ve had so far. Not only was the music fantastic, the art selection and visual effects by Android Jones was beyond words and felt like a truly immersive experience.
The Suwanee Live Oak Florida Music Festival Experience
The experience of a Live Oak Florida music festival is twofold for many first time attendees. First of all, the sprawling forests and rustic campgrounds offer a unique experience to people who are accustomed to an urban lifestyle. And for me: even though I was very used to the park and the woods that it encompassed, it seemed entirely transformed by the atmosphere of the festival. It’s almost as if you’re stepping into another time when entering the site where the festival is held, with weathered wooden buildings speckled throughout huge oak and pine trees that almost completely block out the sky in some areas. We opted for primitive camping, which was essentially just setting up your tent wherever you could find room for it in the woods amongst the other tents.
You begin to feel at one with nature and with the people around you as you all share the experience of setting up camp amongst the ancient, moss-covered evergreen forest. Then, as nighttime sets in, the real experience begins. There is something eerily beautiful about the bright, colorful, intricately interwoven laser lights eerily illuminating the natural landscape. The pulsating, electronic music blasting from huge speakers drowning out the quiet hum of the forest gives you a wonderfully disorienting feeling of being both in the past and the future; being at once a part of nature and wholly separate from it. I found myself getting lost in the very park I had practically grown up in, and I remember being quietly amazed at how quickly and completely an area can be transformed by a few artistic minds.
Live Oak Florida Music Festival Events | Digital Music Magazine | Madrigal Records ®
Some of the awesome music festivals that have debuted and been held at the Spirit of the Suwannee music park include
If you have ever thought about going to a Live Oak Florida music festival, you should definitely give it a try, as it is a truly unique experience.
