It’s May. In less than two months, we’ll be in Bushnell, Il again throwing down at the Cornerstone Music Festival. A lot has happened since last year and a lot has remained the same. Over all we’re in both a stronger and weaker position this year over last. Last year was our first year running the EDM stage at the festival. We’ve been planning the event since several days before we wrapped up the last one. We should have it all together, but figuratively speaking, fate has dealt us another hand and we have had to make some changes to our plans.

Afterhours Club

Back in late April, Kyle Geiger and I had a talk about the festival. As you know Kyle was booked as our headliner for Tuesday night. Well, he got double booked in one of the premiere clubs in Germany that week. His booking agent wouldn’t let him out of it and to be honest, career wise it’s a great opportunity for him. All of this led to one thing which I believe is for the best and that was to take Kyle off our roster for this year. We’ll try to have him next year.
The good news is that this allowed us to adjust Tuesday night so the lineup made more sense. Topher Jones is now the night’s headliner. His set has been extended to two hours and all of the other DJs have had their time extended to one and a half hours. This should do nothing but improve the flow of Tuesday night.

The next thing that happened was the departure of Doug Theodore from the roster. Doug was the show for Friday night. Doug, as many of you who read the boards know, has been going through a rough divorce and things really hit home a few weeks ago. He has temporarily moved to California to live with his brother and his family for a while as God works to restore his heart and mind. Please keep him in prayer. This left us with a totally empty night. The solution to this was very simple. Kevin Oneel will become the entertainment for Friday night. This makes the AlexB vs. Kevin Oneel tag-team set on Wednesday a solo act with Alex B at the wheel. Shiloh will still be on after him.

With all those changes made and a whole bunch of behind the scenes issues resolved, Afterhours is now set. The schedule has been updated on all of the web sites and it’s a done deal. That leaves us with one major task still and that’s the generator stage.

Afterhours Generator

Doug’s departure affected us in one other way. He was the stage manager for our generator stage. After talking things through with several other Tastyfresh staff members, I decided to give this job to Chris Reiche aka Deeflash. Chris’ experience in running Club Truth gives him the foundation for planning and operating the generator stage this year. Chris Salisbury aka Christopher Carl of Castthefire.com will be the official assistant stage manager and will be responsible for recording not only the sets from the generator stage, but the club stage as well.

Our biggest concern right now is raising the funds for this stage. We had hoped early on to rent a 20 x 30 foot tent to use this year as Jeremy Kadinger’s modified DJ van will not make it back to festival this year. This is an extra expense for us right now, but it’s one that is manageable. The cost of this alone will be under $400, but it is still $400 more than we have given the other expenses we have for the stage.

In total, we estimate that the stage will cost about $1,300 to run this year. As I mentioned, we have the tent issue, but it’s not the only one. We also need to construct or purchase a DJ booth once we arrive on scene. Then, there is an issue with paying for the gas to both run the stage and to help offset transportation cost of the people who will run both stages this year. We also would like to offer a free meal every day as well if money permits. We have a good start on the fundraising though. That’s the good news. To date, about $590 has been given. That leaves about $710 more to collect. We need to have at least $1,000 collected before we can commit to purchasing the tent and we need that within the next week or two.
If you feel led to give, please do, even if it’s only a dollar. You can use the ChipIn box to the left of every page on the site. Paypal and credit cards are more than welcome. If just 36 people would give $20, it would be paid for.

That leaves us with the last item regarding the Generator stage: Talent. Chris Reiche has about 20 hour long slots that need to be filled. Some of those already have been, but most have not. We need DJs. Since this is an unofficial stage with a budget of about $1300, these are not paid slots either monetarily or admission wise. I wish we could pay everyone, but due to festival rules we can’t. We can however actually charge DJs to play on our stage under the rules, but we’re not going to do that. To us, that seems totally wrong. We don’t do pay for play. But, DJs are welcome to give if they want to. If you are interested in performing at the Afterhours Generator, all you need to do is contact Chris Reiche (deeflash) in the message boards. The only requirements are that you are a Christian and are willing to basically play for free.

Well, that’s really about it. We’ll post the final Afterhours Generator line up as soon as it’s ironed out and then we’ll see you all at the festival.