Salmonfest 2020 tickets on sale

Blues, folk and rock n roll musician Shakey Groves is on tap, along with the Indy/folk band The National Parks, and bluegrass masters Dusty Green Bones for Salmonfest 2020, three days of love, peace and music July 31-Aug. 2 on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.

Also, to perform in the steadily increasing lineup are the Ska, rock, punk band Less Than Jake; reggae, hip-hop and funk Tropidelic; and the jazz and blues of the LowDown Brass Band.

The list, as it always does this time of year, just keeps growing, so that by the time Salmonfest begins on the Kenai Peninsula Fairgrounds at Ninilchik, several dozen bands and individual musicians will be there to celebrate wild salmon and entertain several thousand people who converge on Ninilchik each year for a weekend of family oriented festivities, food and fun.

Early bird deals on tickets were announced on Feb. 3, and details on the availability of camping facilities are to be announced soon.

Salmonfest began in 2011 as Salmonstock, with the goal of protecting Alaska’s wild salmon and their habitat, in particular the Bristol Bay watershed adjacent to land where a Canadian company is still determined to develop the Pebble mine, a massive copper, gold and molybdenum mine. Advocates for Alaska’s wild salmon turned out in droves to celebrate the iconic fish and enjoy the family oriented musical event.

The Renewable Resources Foundation hired music industry Jim Stearns, a former staffer with the Grateful Dead, to produce the event.  Today Stearns produces and directs Salmonfest under its nonprofit status as a 5013(c) entity. Stearns, who has a passion for clean water, clean air and protection of the natural world, has produced dozens of benefits to aid individuals, causes and organizations.

Advertisement

Now in its 10th year, Salmonfest is widely recognized as Alaska’s premiere music event, attracting over 8,000 people a year to the Kenai Peninsula village of Ninilchik for three days of love, peace and music. Salmonfest officials contend that the waste products that would be produced by the mine and the entire Pebble project are a direct and existential threat to the wild salmon, whose huge annual runs into Bristol Bay are at the heart of the Yup’ik, Dena’ina and Alutiiq cultures. Harvests from the Bay itself constitute up to 40 percent of the world supply of red salmon, provide thousands of jobs in fishing, processing and related industry businesses, and a source of protein in billions of servings to hungry people each year.

Since 2015 Salmonfest has donated over $150,000 in support of salmon and related initiatives.

Along with the music, the festivities include a number of booths featuring a variety of food, creative art, clothing and educational materials on how to protect salmon habitat.

Salmonfest also strives to be a zero-waste event, that sorts and uses discarded items to become resources with other uses.

Children 12 and under may attend free when accompanied by adults who have purchased tickets. There are also special prices for teens and seniors.

Early bird tickets are now on sale at eventbrite.com.

Advertisement