Bad Weather Wipes Out Another Essex County Music Festival

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — Another highly-anticipated music festival in Essex County has been canceled this year on account of rain.

The annual South Mountain International Blues Festival – originally slated to take place on Sept. 9 at South Mountain Reservation in West Orange – was canceled due to rain for the first time in its history, organizers said.

Following the announcement of a one-week postponement, festival organizers conferred with Essex County, the major sponsor and provider of the venue, before deciding to cancel the event.

Producer Mike Griot said that organizers tried to “pull together the impossible” and reschedule for September 15, but ultimately could not accomplish that due to scheduling and logistics issues.

“With performers heavily booked and literally travelling the world, the task of wrangling enough musical acts for a first-class endeavor of this magnitude in five days was insurmountable,” according to Griot.

He noted that the Montclair Jazz Festival, another much-anticipated local event, was likewise canceled due to rain in August.

• See related article: Montclair Recovers From Storm; Arts Community Takes A Hit

Preparations are already underway for the milestone 10th annual South Mountain International Blues Festival, expected to be the largest-ever, organizers said.

Festival organizers provided the below blurb about the event’s history:

“The all-day, all-FREE SMIBF, formerly the South ORANGE International Blues Festival, outgrew the original location in the Village, and has been hosting thousands of music fans yearly at the spacious Oakdale picnic area in the South Mountain Reservation in West Orange. Eight hours of live blues delivered on open grassy slopes overlooking the reservoir and piney hills is the appeal of this perennial family-friendly crowd-pleaser. The Blues Fest's South Orange connection is that it was started by longtime South Orange residents Mike Griot and Joel Levin in 2010 to "bring free music to the people and to preserve the legacy of the blues as a foremost American art genre." The mission of the sponsoring organization, North Jersey Blues Alliance, is to expose blues music to the greatest number of guests at the annual Festival and also to plan musical education to local county youth. The event is funded entirely by corporate and individual sponsors, vendor fees and the County of Essex.”

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Photos: South Mountain International Blues Festival (previous events)