In another setback for the struggling music scene in Boise, Idaho, the promoter of Flipside Fest announced today that they have canceled this year’s installment of the event.
The promoters behind the festival, The Duck Club, said the multi-stage, multi-day event will happen again next year. Nevertheless, the cancellation of Flipside Fest 2024 is the latest black eye for concert organizers in Boise, following one of the most lackluster Treefort Fest events in recent memory.
“Don’t worry, Flipside friends: We will be back!” read a post on the website for promoter The Duck Club. “You may be asking, ‘Why is Flipside taking a year off?’ To put it simply: the Duck Club team needs a bit of a summer break.”
The excuse seems fair on the one hand because of the difficult logistical maneuvering required for a multi-venue festival. (technically, Flipside Fest takes place in neighboring Garden City). On the other hand, last year’s event ended on the first day of fall.
Flipside Fest is a kindred music event held roughly six months after Treefort, which is also managed by The Duck Club. An organizer involved with Duck Club told us earlier this year that the promoter is also angling to stage a winter music festival.
The Duck Club, in its announcement of Flipside Fest’s postponement, took a glass-half-full approach by rattling off the promoter’s achievements in recent years:
According to today’s announcement, “Over the last four years we have built and created a lot [sic]: navigated the pandemic, held two Treefort Music Fests in six months, moved the [Treefort] fest’s Main Stage to Julia Davis Park, introduced and produced two Flipside Fests, opened Treefort Music Hall and Hap Hap Lounge, [and] took over operations of the historic El Korah Shrine building and transformed it into the two venues that make up Shrine Social Club.”
Duck Club CEO Eric Gilbert said in the same statement: “We will miss partying in Garden City in September, we are looking forward to having a slower summer and focusing on hosting some really amazing shows at both our venues in Downtown Boise. We are forever grateful for the support of our community and can’t wait to bring Flipside Fest back in 2025.”
The Flipside Fest postponement isn’t the only problem for efforts by Duck Club and others to galvanize, energize and grow Boise’s music scene, which has not kept pace with the area’s rapid population growth in recent years. On a consistent basis, artists that would otherwise draw massive crowds in Boise find themselves competing with each other due to poor planning, logistical issues and/or possibly a lack of communication and/or collaboration between the city’s concert promoters.
Read more about Boise’s double-booking conundrum in this previous report.
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