Suwannee Hulaween is an annual music and camping festival held over Halloween weekend at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida.

Overview

The festival, hosted by The String Cheese Incident, was originally produced by Silver Wrapper and Purple Hat Productions. In 2019 it was purchased by Etix.[5][6] The festival is held outdoors on five to seven stages and allows the attendees to camp onsite for the weekend at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park campground. Attendees are encouraged to dress in costumes befitting a Halloween dance party. The Main Stage is where The String Cheese Incident plays three sets each evening and is then followed by other headlining bands. The Amphitheater has a stage to accommodate additional headliners. The Patch is an additional stage the size of the Amphitheater. Spirit Lake is home to the art installation and a silent disco. The Campground Stage accommodates local, less well-known bands. Each year approximately 100 artists perform.

In 2014, Suwannee Hulaween added a day to the festival to become a four-day long festival. If Halloween (October 31) falls on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday of that year, Suwannee Hulaween is held during those four days. Otherwise it is held the weekend before.

The 2018 festival featured the world’s first virtual reality music stage that allowed attendees to interactively explore the relationship between music and sound.[7]

Suwannee Hulaween 2019 was confirmed in May 2019 and it headlined The String Cheese Incident, Bassnectar, Anderson Paak and The Free Nationals, and Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit. The festival took place the weekend before Halloween (10/24/19-10/27/19), and the theme was the 1990s.

Suwannee Hulaween

The 3rd annual Suwannee Hulaween went down this past Halloween weekend in Live Oak, Florida and it was even bigger and better than we had imagined! The 3-day music and arts festival hosted by The String Cheese Incident brought over 21,000 festival goers and music lovers alike together from far and wide, nearly tripling the attendance from last year and ranking it among one of largest festivals held at Suwaneee. With a lineup as diverse and impressive as Hulaween’s and a reputation for being held at one of the top venues in the US, the influx of attendees was certainly no surprise to us. With major acts such as Pretty Lights, STS9, Primus and Odesza to name a few, it was a must-attend for people of the south and beyond. Despite the growing crowd, Suwannee’s 800-acre property tucked away off the beaten path in north Florida made for quite the cozy setting and resulted in my opinion what I dare to call the best festival of the year.

They say 3rd time is a charm and it couldn’t have described Hulaween any better. As a 3rd year attendee myself, I am lucky to have seen this festival through its infantile stages with a mere 7,000 attendees and have had the opportunity to grow with it as it morphs and expands into one of the most anticipated events of the year. As we all know, weather can make or break anyone’s time and mood at a festival and the past 2 years of Hulaween have been plagued by extreme weather conditions. The first year experienced a constant downpour of rain all night resulting in flooded grounds and cancelled sets and the second year experienced an extreme cold front resulting in frigid temperatures in the 30’s all weekend making it tough to enjoy sets. Not to be underprepared for the cold weather again or taken off guard about rain, we packed for every occasion; while it was a bit warmer than we had hoped, we didn’t have to live in 5 layers of clothing and no sets were canceled due to rain so I would consider that a major success.

What sets Suwannee apart from most festivals is the venue is a state campground and hosts many other festivals and events year round so the people running it are veterans and well informed on how things operate. With permanent stage structures built onsite and multiple fully functioning bathrooms with running showers scattered throughout the venue it is one of the most comfortable places to call home for a few days. If you are up early enough and beat the bathroom crowd you can even enjoy yourself a steaming hot shower, which is virtually unheard of while at a camping festival. With the parks laid-back approach to treating attendees like capable adults instead of criminals, the security is lax and the entry was smooth and painless. Instead of most festivals where staff directs each car into a specific 10×10 camping spot in some god-awful overgrown field with no trees or shade in site, where you are left vulnerable to the elements and have no privacy from your too-close neighbors, Suwannee is the exact opposite. You are welcomed to come early as most people do, as it gets quite crowded by Friday, and section off a nice spot among the Spanish Moss Oak Trees to set up camp right next to your car. With running water faucets everywhere along with outdoor showers, power outlets for twinkling strands of Christmas lights and plenty of hammock trees it is no wonder this is where you will see the most elaborate camp sites you’ve ever set your eyes on. With the option to rent an electrical site or an onsite cabin as well as bring an RV, Hulaween can cater to even the most comfy camper.

There is a reason the state park is named The Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park, the spirit and vibes at any of the festivals held here are unlike anything you’ve ever experienced elsewhere. This land has a rich history of festivals and generations attending events here that no wonder the park’s ‘slogan’ is “Music Lives Here”. Despite the packed out venue it never felt too overwhelming or rushed, no one ever seemed hurried and if you lost your friends in a crowd their was always a smiling face to hang out with until you ran into them again. A hodgepodge of attendees from children, to an older crowd and a mixture of young folks alike all gather here to share in their love of music and a good time. Diversity is what makes Suwannee festivals and specifically Hulaween such an incredible event; the older crowd needs the younger generations to keep them lively and the younger crowd needs the older folks to show us how to be wise and responsible attendees and the kids just teach us all to not take ourselves too seriously.

The excitement of Halloween got everyone in the spirit as crazy, elaborate costumes and all the LED things lit up the night sky over the course of the weekend. One of the biggest highlights of the Hulaween experience is Spirit Lake, “a visual arts extravaganza” which transforms this waterfront area into a another dimension with the help of local artists and Electric Forest’s own Art Director, Andrew Carroll, returning again to completely blow our minds. Working with some of the Southeast’s most talented sculptors, fire/metal workers, painters, performance artists and lighting designers Spirit Lake morphed into something out of a dream, making you question reality and opening your senses to something never before experienced. From projection mapping visuals, to Burning Man art cars, to fire dancers, to endless amounts of incredible art and 2 stages for live music and the late night” silent disco, Spirit Lake takes the cake for our favorite place to explore.

The weekend was nothing short of magical as attendees all came out with their best costumes and dancing shoes and the music was in no short supply. If you have ever seen The String Cheese Incident live then you already know their performances are incredible and over the top and Halloween Cheese even exceeds their normal extravaganza. Over the weekend SCI played a total of 7 sets all ranging in different genres as they are so well known to do and we loved every minute of it! With a crowd favorite Halloween set to the theme of “Goul Train” (think Adams Family meets Soul Train) the Afros and sequins bell bottoms sprinkled throughout the crowd transformed us all back in time with classics such as “Brick House”, “Car Wash” and “We Are Family” performed live along with a slew of onstage performers and Wu Tang Clan’s own GZA MCing the set.

Although Hulaween is only in it’s 3rd year of production it is already the highlight of so many people’s year and in our opinion the best event to cap out your festival season. With incredible lineups, top notch production, vivacious attendees and one of the best venues in the country it is no surprise this best kept secret is spreading across the nation and bringing people from all over to experience this little slice of paradise we have down in Florida. We have barely finished unpacking the camping gear and catching up on sleep and we are already looking forward to what next year will bring!

To all of those who experienced Suwannee for the first time, welcome home! The fun doesn’t have to stop just because Hulaween is over, the park hosts other events and festivals year round, check them out here!

The Location : Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida.

 

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Celebrations are concentrated for about two weeks before and through Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday.

New Orleans Mardi Gras History

The origins of Mardi Gras can be traced to medieval Europe, passing through Rome and Venice in the 17th and 18th centuries to the French House of the Bourbons. From here, the traditional revelry of “Boeuf Gras,” or fatted calf, followed France to her colonies.

On March 2, 1699, French-Canadian explorer Jean Baptiste Le Moyne Sieur de Bienville arrived at a plot of ground 60 miles directly south of New Orleans, and named it “Pointe du Mardi Gras” when his men realized it was the eve of the festive holiday. Bienville also established “Fort Louis de la Louisiane” (which is now Mobile) in 1702. In 1703, the tiny settlement of Fort Louis de la Mobile celebrated America’s very first Mardi Gras.

In 1704, Mobile established a secret society (Masque de la Mobile), similar to those that form our current Mardi Gras krewes. It lasted until 1709. In 1710, the “Boeuf Gras Society” was formed and paraded from 1711 through 1861. The procession was held with a huge bull’s head pushed along on wheels by 16 men. Later, Rex would parade with an actual bull, draped in white and signaling the coming Lenten meat fast. This occurred on Fat Tuesday.

New Orleans was established in 1718 by Bienville. By the 1730s, Mardi Gras was celebrated openly in New Orleans, but not with the parades we know today. In the early 1740s, Louisiana’s governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, established elegant society balls, which became the model for the New Orleans Mardi Gras balls of today.

The earliest reference to Mardi Gras “Carnival” appears in a 1781 report to the Spanish colonial governing body. That year, the Perseverance Benevolent & Mutual Aid Association was the first of hundreds of clubs and carnival organizations formed in New Orleans.

By the late 1830s, New Orleans held street processions of maskers with carriages and horseback riders to celebrate Mardi Gras. Dazzling gaslight torches, or “flambeaux,” lit the way for the krewe’s members and lent each event an exciting air of romance and festivity. In 1856, six young Mobile natives formed the Mistick Krewe of Comus, invoking John Milton’s hero Comus to represent their organization. Comus brought magic and mystery to New Orleans with dazzling floats (known as tableaux cars) and masked balls. Krewe members remained anonymous.

In 1870, Mardi Gras’ second Krewe, the Twelfth Night Revelers, was formed. This is also the first recorded account of Mardi Gras “throws.”

Newspapers began to announce Mardi Gras events in advance, and they even printed “Carnival Edition” lithographs of parades’ fantastic float designs (after they rolled, of course – themes and floats were always carefully guarded before the procession). At first, these reproductions were small, and details could not be clearly seen. But beginning in 1886 with Proteus’ parade “Visions of Other Worlds,” these chromolithographs could be produced in full, saturated color, doing justice to the float and costume designs of Carlotta Bonnecase, Charles Briton and B.A. Wikstrom. Each of these designers’ work was brought to life by talented Parisian paper-mache’ artist Georges Soulie’, who for 40 years was responsible for creating all of Carnival’s floats and processional outfits.

1872 was the year that a group of businessmen invented a King of Carnival, Rex, to preside over the first daytime parade. To honor the visiting Russian Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff, the businessmen introduced Romanoff’s family colors of purple, green and gold as Carnival’s official colors. Purple stands for justice; gold for power; and green for faith. This was also the Mardi Gras season that Carnival’s improbable anthem, “If Ever I Cease to Love,” was cemented, due in part to the Duke’s fondness for the tune.

The following year, floats began to be constructed entirely in New Orleans instead of France, culminating with Comus’ magnificent “The Missing Links to Darwin’s Origin of Species,” in which exotic paper-mache’ animal costumes served as the basis for Comus to mock both Darwin’s theory and local officials, including Governor Henry Warmoth. In 1875, Governor Warmoth signed the “Mardi Gras Act,” making Fat Tuesday a legal holiday in Louisiana, which it still is.

Like Comus and the Twelfth Night Revelers, most Mardi Gras krewes today developed from private social clubs with restrictive membership policies. Since all of these parade organizations are completely funded by their members, New Orleanians call it the “Greatest Free Show on Earth!”

The Location : New Orleans Mardi Gras

Website : https://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/

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