Despite Challenges, Outermost Organizers Ready Festival’s Return

ORLEANS – It’s not easy running a music festival. And according to Mike McNamara, it’s only getting harder.

McNamara, whose Hog Island Beer Co. hosts the annual Outermost Roots and Blues Festival alongside the nonprofit Friends of Nauset Beach, told the select board last year that as costs for goods and services continue to rise, organizing the two-day event has become increasingly challenging.

“We all know the cost of gas right now, and there are a lot of things that need to be trucked in,” he said of the festival’s operating costs. “There’s a lot of surcharges and things like that that  are on invoices for everything that we’re experiencing right now.”

And then there’s weather. Last October, organizers pulled the plug on the second day of the festival due to rain and high winds. Some performances were relocated from the upper parking lot at Nauset Beach to indoor venues around town. But Kelsey Dutton, treasurer for Friends of Nauset Beach, told the board that the disruption gave organizers pause to consider whether or not they could afford to bring the popular Columbus Day weekend festival back for 2026. Fortunately, she said, some people have already stepped up with generous donations to keep the event afloat for this year.

“So with that, we are ready to go,” she said.

On June 17, the select board unanimously voted in support of bringing the festival back this year on Oct. 10 and 11. McNamara said the vote of support allows organizers to begin working with the town to host the event in the beach parking lot. 

“As much as there’s all these challenges, we would like to still forge forward and still make this a community event,” he said.

McNamara noted that the challenges facing the Outermost festival are being experienced by organizers of other music festivals around the country. Some, including the annual Boston Calling music festival in Cambridge, have been cancelled due to the high costs associated with operating such events. 

But Outermost has already been discontinued once due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and McNamara said he doesn’t want to stunt the festival’s growth since its return in 2023. 

“We’re ready to go,” he said. “We want to do this. It was really disheartening when we had to take that hiatus during COVID, but to bring it back over the last few years, it’s been exciting to see things come back in full swing.”

The festival has welcomed big-name acts such as G. Love and Special Sauce, Jack Johnson and Steel Pulse in past years. McNamara told the board that while this year’s lineup is in the works, organizers have “great leads” on potential performers for this fall.

Select board Chair Mefford Runyon said he has spoken with Police Chief Scott MacDonald, Fire Chief Geof Deering and the town natural resources manager, Nate Sears, all of whom he said are “very positive” about bringing the event back for the fall.

Mark Mathison of the select board, who has volunteered with the festival since its inception, said he trusts that organizers will continue to learn from what did and didn’t work in past years to make this year’s event a success. He also credited the Orleans Chamber of Commerce’s Outermost Friday event, held on the village green the Friday before the start of the festival, with helping turn the festival into a weekend-long, town-wide event that supports local merchants and businesses.

“We learn every year,” he said. “It gets better every year, and I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be even better this year.”

McNamara said one of the biggest challenges in hosting the festival is predicting how many people will attend. The festival allows for as many as 5,000 attendees, he said, but many purchase their tickets at the last minute. But as more festivals are cancelled and scaled back, he said those events’ loss could be Outermost’s gain.

“There’s a lot of festival goers out there. There’s a lot of people that want to attend these types of events.”