The Village of Patchogue will once again be the center of the area’s music universe this month as the annual Great South Bay Music Festival rolls into town.
Now in its 15th year, the event’s organizers have invested more money than ever before to bring bigger acts that aim to draw more people to the four-day festival.
Organizers Jim Faith and Larry Weinberger said talent spending for this year’s music festival has increased by about 25 percent, boosting its 2023 entertainment budget to around $1 million. And that doesn’t include this year’s higher production costs for everything from restrooms to salaries for festival-days support staff of at least 100 people.
As with other live entertainment events and venues, the last few years have been challenging for Long Island’s largest music festival. In 2019, the event was held during a heat wave when temperatures soared above 100 degrees for three of its four-day run. The festival had to be cancelled for the next two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For the pandemic years when we couldn’t hold the festival, we had to send back a ton of refunds, nearly $200,000,” Faith told LIBN. “Our ticket company held on to all the money in our account. They wouldn’t give us the money to give back the refunds. It took a year to get our money.”
And when it resumed last year, attendance was down, as people were still COVID-wary of being in big crowds.
“We lost vendors, and we lost sponsors, because they weren’t comfortable about what was going to happen, especially the artists on the road,” Faith said. “Artists’ prices went up, in some cases double. They had suffered too, and they were just trying to make it up.”
The festival barely broke even as a result. And while it’s never been a big money maker for organizers, it’s estimated that the event generates more than $5 million for the local economy.
“It’s the artists and staging, generators, staffing. We have over 100 employees working for us, union carpenters and electricians and stagehands, the police, EMTs, the vendors, and that’s just inside the festival,” Faith says. “Outside the festival there’s the restaurants and the hotels, the truckers, the travel, and everything else. There’s a lot of money because of our festival.”
Courtesy of Great South Bay Music Festival
Faith, who runs Island Artists Agency, knows the music business. A co-founder of the Long Island Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame, he has been producing shows for more than 35 years and is currently the exclusive talent buyer for The Iridium in Manhattan and The Space at Westbury.
For the last 10 years or so, Faith’s partner for the Great South Bay festival has been Larry Weinberger, a real estate developer and principal of Bellmore-based MGD Investments, which owns dozens of commercial properties on Long Island. His daughter Gabrielle Ross is a singer/songwriter, who helped introduce him to the music industry and its trials and tribulations.
“I saw the festival as a way for me to help young artists, both local and from around the world, because being around my daughter’s career, I always saw the battle that young developing artists go through. So I viewed festival as a way for me to support the arts,” Weinberger said. “Of course, we have our established artists, and any artist that gets on our stage must be very talented, but it’s such a thrill to give up-and-coming artists some stage time and the support they deserve.”
Over the years, the festival held at Patchogue’s Shorefront Park has featured some major acts, including James Brown, the Doobie Brothers, Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick, Graham Nash and more. This year, the star-studded lineup features Phil Lesh & Friends, Gov’t Mule, Electric Hot Tuna, Dave Mason, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Dirty Heads and many more among the 62 acts scheduled to perform.
The festival has a main stage, two secondary stages and a fourth stage for children’s entertainment. There will be 50 merchandise vendors offering crafts and artisan items, along with a few corporate booths and 20 food vendors. In addition, Manhattan Beer Distributors will have a tent to showcase many of its brands, including Modelo, Samuel Adams, White Claw Seltzer and others.
The presenting sponsor of the Great South Bay festival is Island Federal Credit Union.
“Because we’re a credit union and part of our mission is to give back to the communities that we serve, we do a lot of local charity work in the area and supporting something like this, a celebration of both national and local art, music and food, is really a home run for us,” said Chris Murray, vice president of marketing for Island Federal. “We’ve seen how the Great South Bay festival has grown over the last 15 years and become a staple event here, so we jumped at the chance to partner up with Jim and all the work that they do.”
This year, Island Federal will donate a couple of dollars to Long Island Cares the Harry Chapin Food Bank for every ticket sold. As it has for many years, festival organizers will continue to donate $1 from every ticket to Stony Brook Cancer Center, which has received more than $250,000 to date as a result.
Tickets start at $65 for a one-day general admission and go up to $225 for ultra-VIP tickets, where people can park close, sit under a raised tent, get gift bags, and air-conditioned bathrooms. The festival runs from Thursday, July 20 through Sunday, July 23.
Despite some temporary inconvenience for homeowners on Patchogue’s south end, Mayor Paul Pontieri says the festival has been good for the village, which gets a few dollars from every ticket sold.
Courtesy of Great South Bay Music Festival
“It brings a nice crowd to the village. Jim Faith and his group put together the security, the performers. It’s a real asset,” Pontieri said. “We’re just finishing up a major redevelopment of our parks down there and it lends to that. It’s a lot of hard work by the village. We do all the fencing, we work with them on security, we work with them on all of those things to make it the success that it is. Overall, it’s very good. It’s been a pleasure to have.”
Sparked by his involvement with the festival, Weinberger says he’s invested in Patchogue, purchasing multiple properties in the village over the last few years.
“I fell in love with it, the vibrance, the village administration, the mayor. It’s so cohesive there they make things happen and it’s very impressive to real estate developers,” he said. “I look forward to possibly doing more.”
And Weinberger says the festival should continue for years to come.
“This year is our biggest budget and I think we made the commitment to go big or go home. We’re bringing the highest level of musical talent to Long Island that we can possibly bring,” he said. “It’s a passion more than it is a money maker. Now we’re at the point where we’re buying top-flight acts. It’s a continuous reinvestment to the point where maybe one day we’ll be able to see a profit, but that’s never been the priority.”
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