Wild Bison Festival offered community free day filled with music, arts in March
The Arcadian Wild headlined the artist lineup for first-ever music and arts festival.
Kim Chaudoin |
The Arcadian Wild's evening concert at the premiere Wild Bison Festival.
With a chill in the air and plenty of sunshine, Lipscomb University students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends and neighbors converged on campus Saturday, March 23, for the first-ever Wild Bison Festival.
The Wild Bison Festival, produced by Nashville-based The Arcadian Wild in partnership with Lipscomb’s George Shinn College of Entertainment & the Arts (CEA), was a day filled with a variety of concerts, film screenings, fashion exhibitions and arts activities in Bison Square in the heart of campus.
The festival, which was free and open to the public, began at noon with a music showcase featuring seniors from Lipscomb’s School of Music on the main stage and an exciting lineup of headliners performed throughout the day on two stages in Bison Square. Performers included Nordista Freeze, Taylor Leonhart, Downriver Collective, Oh Jeremiah, Jac Thompson (’19), Hello Darling, River & Rail, Jonnie the band, Logan Bennett & Ava Poling, and Elaina Clement. The festival also included an art gallery showcasing the work of School of Art and Design students, a rotating film festival in Shamblin Theater and a small business fair along with other festivities. The evening concluded with a concert by alumni artists The Arcadian Wild.
“We are so excited about Wild Bison we just about can’t take it,” says John J. Thompson, director of music industry studies at Lipscomb and music festival veteran. “This festival represents the adventurous spirit of our current students and alumni and just a taste of some of the incredible art being made by people of faith working in the world at large. The name says it all. These bison don’t see fences or walls - they’re wild and free! The Arcadian Wild are such fantastic role models for our students and we expect an amazing day.”
Conversations have taken place in recent years about the need for an arts and music festival at Lipscomb. Gracie Richmond, CEA student advisory board president, says that last year a music student had the idea for an event that planted the seed for this year’s extravaganza.
“Last year we had a first run of a concert festival day and called it LipscombPalooza, which was a collaboration between the CEA and Lipscomb’s Student Activities Board,” explains Richmond, a senior from Knoxville, Tennessee. “When the Arcadian Wild heard about this idea, they approached the CEA Student Advisory Board to talk about a collaboration for this year. What they were talking about was a joint music and arts festival, which is something that the CEA Board has had on our hearts since we began in the spring of 2022.”
“We love finding ways to bring together all the creatives in our college to celebrate all the awesome things we are doing, and this was one of the visions we have had,” she continues. “We are excited to be collaborating with so many people on this event and getting to see it come to fruition.”
The Arcadian Wild. Photo by Shelby M'Lynn Mick.
Members of the The Arcadian Wild and their partners at Vere Music approached Lipscomb with the idea for the festival and the Wild (for Arcadian Wild) Bison (Lipscomb’s mascot) was born.
“We jumped at the chance when approached about the opportunity,” says Thompson.
The Arcadian Wild is an Americana folk band that released its self-titled debut to widespread praise in 2015, racking up nearly 50 million streams on Spotify alone. Heavy touring followed that release and included several supporting players, and the group returned in 2019 with a second full-length LP, Finch In The Pantry, which debuted in the Top 10 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart. In 2021 they released the EP Principum, which reached #3 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart and helped earn the band performances everywhere from the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to the famed Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. They released their most recent album, Welcome, last year.
The Arcadian Wild has deep connections to Lipscomb. It got its start in the fall of 2013 when then-Lipscomb students Isaac Horn and Lincoln Mick, and a few other chorus students began getting together in the evenings after class to write songs, jam and learn enough cover tunes to fill a 90-minute set for the weekly Thursday coffeehouse night in the campus center Starbucks. Ten years later, the band reconnects with the place and the people that shaped them, by hosting the inaugural Wild Bison Festival.
The college’s Student Advisory Board was instrumental in involving all departments that are part of the CEA to showcase seniors and their work, and the music industries studies students and The Arcadian Wild planned the festival portion.
“We are excited about the opportunity an event like this affords our music industry studies students as they help to manage all aspects of the event - as well as the pre-festival logistical and planning support offered by the CEA Student Advisory Board,” explains Thompson. “It was certainly a challenge working out the logistics and details, and it required the help of numerous departments and individuals across campus, but it definitely feels like a great idea whose time has come. It truly takes a village to put on a festival like this - and this village rocks!”
See more about this year's inaugural Wild Bison Festival @WildBisonFest on Instagram.