And now a word from our sponsor...

Let's hear from Gary Chetkof
Founder, The Mountain Jam Festival

I think this is one of the strongest lineups that we’ve ever had. We really tried to be more diverse this year and purposely organized Saturday’s lineup to be different with bands like The Hold Steady, Coheed & Cambria and Gene Ween which is a little bit out of the box for us. At the same time it sets up Sunday to be a nice presentation of some of the more established bands and some Woodstock related bands for a tribute to the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival. The idea was to bring the best of both worlds and diversify the festival musically. Having The Allman Brothers make the Mountain Jam trip for a one-off festival stop as part of their 40th anniversary celebration is totally exciting. As always we'll have two great nights of Gov't Mule and it's always great to have one of Warren’s "other" bands here at Mountain Jam.

We added two new stages to the festival this year which allows for a lot more bands. We now have an Acoustic Stage in the Awareness Village as well as a new Campground Stage to rock the campers throughout the fest! These stages will spotlight great emerging artists as well as some very established names on the Acoustic Stage like Michael Franti (Sunday 2:15) and John Medeski (Saturday 4:45).

There are some great new attractions this year. A 9 hole Frisbee Golf course which will span high portions of the mountain. Disc Golf will be free of charge. Also for the first time ever we’ll be running the chair lifts up the mountain. People can take sky rides to the top and either hike down or ride round trip on the lift. We’re bringing in a climbing wall and Quad power jumps which we think people will really love. The Awareness Village will be further developed and expanded with lots of great demonstrations and even more amazing attractions. It's an awesome place to kick back & hang out during the fest.

Golf Cart Taxi Service will be available to help people get around.

iClips will be back once again with the live webcast, and new this year we will pump the webcast into the lodge and VIP areas.

People told us they loved the VIP experience, so we are not surprised the 3 day VIP tickets have already sold out completely. There are some single day Sunday VIP tickets available. We’re bringing back all the great food and the wide selection of micro brews we had last year. The hammocks in the forest and the bar in the woods which were a big hit will be back. We also listened to suggestions from last year and added a separate, easy to get to entrance and separate showers for the VIP folks.

We've greened the festival a little bit more this year. The Campground Stage will run on solar power. We are trying to limit the amount of plastic water bottles by offering refillable Mountain Jam Cups so people can refill those with spring water. We are also making all the vendors use bio-degradable utensils as well as offering a wide selection of organic foods.

Late Night is going to be strong again this year with 3 stages going. On Friday night we have Girl Talk who will be really fun under the stars till 3 in the morning while Eric Krasno and Chapter 2 are throwing down the funk inside the lodge. On Saturday we’ve got Karl Denson on the mountain with U-Melt inside. Both Friday and Saturday night the campground stage also will be rockin' late night.

We couldn't be happier with the way the festival is shaping up this year. See you up on the Mountain in just a couple weeks!

Gary Chetkof and Grace Potter ~ Mtn Jam IV

Gary is the President and principal owner of CHET-5 Broadcasting, which owns and operates WDST & Radio Woodstock. He's one of the largest concert promoters in the Hudson Valley area, and the producer of the annual Mountain Jam Festival at Hunter Mtn.