by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

A personal highlight of attending this year’s Grrrl Camp festival was getting a personal tour of the Falconwood Park compound by 1% Production’s Jim Johnson. During the golf-cart adventure I met Brandon and Jim Miller, the proprietors of Falconwood, who briefly recapped the park’s story. 

So inspired was I by their tale of overcoming one disaster after another only to come out with one of area’s premiere event facilities that I pitched the story to the fine folks at Flatwater Free Press. They said “proceed,” and lo and behold, the story was published yesterday. 

You can read the story right here at the Flatwater Free Press website. It details the Millers’ history of the park, from acquisition through disasters, and also includes comments from Outlandia’s Tyler Owen about how and why he and his team choose the site for their annual music festival. Give it a read.

I got this one done just under the wire. Outlandia Festival begins tomorrow at Falconwood, and despite what has been the worst weather year I’ve lived (survived) through (flooding rains, grapefruit-sized-hail storms, blistering heatwaves and last week’s hurricane-force windstorm), Outlandia is lucking into one of the best weather-weekends of the year. 

During the reporting, everyone talked about reasons folks have yet to venture out to the park for past festivals or events. Distance and unfamiliarity were on the list, but one of the toppers was concern about park access – Falconwood Park is accessed by taking the Glenwood Exit driving on Interstate 75 and then taking Highway 34  a few hundred yards to narrow, two-lane South 8th St. to  Falconwood’s main entrance, where you’re on an even narrower barely two-lane road to the parking fields. If you saw it on a map you’d think, “man, getting in and out of there during a festival has to be a nightmare.”

The organizers know you’re thinking this and have prepared to make coming and going as smooth as possible. They tell me there’s never been a severe backup leaving the park. Tyler Owen, one of Outlandia’s organizers, put it this way: 

“I don’t know if you’ve ever been stuck in a Husker parking garage after a football game. It ain’t that,” he said. “We watched the line of red tail lights and it was maybe bad for 15 or 20 minutes, but it wasn’t (like) getting stuck on the top deck of a parking garage in Lincoln.” 

I’ve talked to a number of folks who have attended past Outlandia Festivals and all said getting out of the park wasn’t a headache. If what Tyler and the Outlandia team says is true, it’ll be tested Friday night when The Faint (and not headliner The Flaming Lips) close out the first day’s festivities. I’ve talked to more people excited about The Faint than any other band on the festival’s bill this year. The Head and the Heart close out Saturday night. 

The full band line-up and other specifics are at outlandiafestival.com. I’ll write more about the bands tomorrow w/some sound clips, etc. All three tiers of tickets are still available.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2024 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.