By ANYSSA BOHANAN
CENTRAL OREGON DAILY NEWS
The Sisters Folk Festival entertains thousands of people every year.
The Folk Festival’s Creative Director Brad Tisdel calls it, “an extraordinary music experience”.
But like so many other outdoor concert series, this year’s festival is postponed to September 2021.
To help fill the live music gap, they’ll be hosting a new outdoor music event next month called ‘Close to Home’.
“We’re booking people that are close to home, we are encouraging people that are close to home to come,” said Tisdel. We don’t want to bring a lot of people to our community.”
The event sold out all 190 tickets in just one day.
If the show is a success, there could be more in the future.
“If that goes well then we’ll have some music on the Festival weekend, which is September 11, 12 and 13,” said Tisdel. “It won’t be the Festival, it will be a standalone event.”
Just down the road, General Duffy’s in Redmond is preparing to launch its own concert series.
“We are going to bring local artists and national artists into this space to share with our community,” said Tanner Robertson, Owner of General Duffy’s. “It’s going to be through the entire month of August, typically it will be Thursday, Friday or Saturday.”
Strict COVID-19 guidelines will be enforced at both venues.
“There’s pods of two, and pods of four that people could buy, spaced out and painted on the grass itself. Masks are required,” Tisdel said about ‘Close to Home’.
“You can buy tickets, free events will also be ticketed just so we can make sure we’re staying within the 200 limit,” Robertson said.
The events, they say, are meant to bring people back together.
“Good people gathering in a single location safely, it’s just, there’s nothing like it, and that’s why people love to live here in Central Oregon” Robertson said.
“We want to put people back to work, while at the same time provide an experience that reminds people of why we do what we do,” Tisdel said.
Tisdele says we should know by mid-August whether or not they’ll have more live music in September.
For more information on how you can get tickets to concerts at General Duffy’s, visit generalduffys.com.
