Every spring, I anxiously wait as festival lineups get announced. As it moves closer to the festival date, set times drop, and I plan my festivals days around who will be playing where and at what time. I go from stage to stage making my way through crowds of thousands to see some of my favorite artists. If I’m really lucky, none of my must see acts overlap and if there’s time, I’ll try to catch some new music that I’m not familiar with. While large scale festivals usually have the hottest, biggest names in music, beautiful crafted stages and unreal production there’s something extremely special and intimate about a small festival where you know nobody on the lineup.

I heard about Mazzstock, located in Marlboro, New York through friends and Facebook. A few of my friends decided to go as we’re from the area and tickets were less than $100 for the entire weekend. We didn’t know what to expect but decided what the hell, for that price even if it did suck we wouldn’t be out that much money.

I arrived Friday afternoon with zero expectations and immediately appreciated that as opposed to larger scale festivals, getting in was a breeze. No long lines here. Already, this was off to a good start. I met up with my friends who had already set up our campsite. Immediately, I took notice that there was a strong community vibe, more so than I’ve seen at bigger events. There was just an overall, underlying understanding between everyone that we’re here to have a great time, bullshit won’t be tolerated, but other than really anything goes. I heard multiple times throughout the weekend that everyone here was family.

After chillin’ at my campsite for a little bit, I made my way down to the stages. If you’re expecting to see multi-million dollar stages, then you’d be disappointed. There were two simple stages both of which alternated between sets so no worrying about having to miss a set due to a schedule conflict. Just based on the sheer size of the festival, you could hear the music from no matter where you were camped. The music was on point all weekend but when something really got me groovin’, it was easy to just leave my campsite and just walk down to the stages.

The three acts that absolutely crushed it for me were Spiritual Rez, a reggae funk dance band. Immediately following them was Teddy Midnight based out of Brooklyn, NY who describe themselves as electro-dance-funk and Space Bacon, with influences like The Disco Biscuits and Lotus, that played an absolute filthy Sunday day set. I’m now a fan of all three of these acts and if it wasn’t being able to check out everything and not be held to a strict schedule as I would be at a larger festival, I probably would not have ever discovered them. It’s also awesome to see these guys perform and just get off stage and chill with everyone else at the festival, something that rarely happens at large events. The late night silent disco which was hosted by both Trailblazing Events & Kick Rock Inc. danced everyone into the sunrise.

I spoke with James Ffrench, owner of Trailblazing Events, to understand why these are the events he’s truly passionate about being a part of and creating. He enjoys these more than mainstream festivals for the “community." He added that there’s something “raw and real” about a more underground event that you don’t get elsewhere. I completely understood what he meant by that as I felt it too and I’m excited to attend more events that Trailblazing Events will throw in the future.

This weekend taught me that festivals aren’t just about seeing big name acts and over the top production. It was refreshing to be around people that were all so authentically themselves (shoutout to my cuddle puddle crew) and I’m leaving with a deep appreciation for this type of event. I discovered incredible music and am excited to see these acts blow up. I went into this weekend just looking to have a good time and it ended up being the best weekend of summer. It was freeing being able to be 100 percent present in each and every minute of the weekend. I urge you to find a festival where you nobody on the lineup and just show up because you will also learn that bigger is in fact not always better. Thank you Mazzstock and see you next year!