Monday, January 26, 2009

Early Bird Tickets and Onsite Camping go on Sale Feb. 14

Feb. 14 falls on a Saturday this year, but since we've ALWAYS put tickets on sale on Cupid Day, we didn't want to mess with anyone's calendar. Early bird tickets will be available online, over the phone, or at one of our ticket outlets (see the Tickets page on our website - we'll have outlets listed there soon, they'll mostly be the same as last year). Camping and youth tickets are only available online or over the phone.



If you're in or near Ithaca, remember that our last State Theatre show of the season is coming up: The Flatlanders are coming to town on April 3. The Flatlanders are Butch Hancock, Joe Ely, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Some of you GrassRoots veterans will remember Jimmie Dale Gilmore's incredible performance from several years back - we're still talking about it. Butch Hancock and Joe Ely are just as amazing, and all together... well, let's just say it ain't no joke. We'll see you there!

Currently Listening: The Flatlanders - 'More a Legend Than a Band'

Currently Watching: The Big Lebowski (Jimmie Dale Gilmore plays Smokey in this movie)

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Last Call for Holiday Special!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Have you gotten your tickets for GrassRoots 2009 yet? Remember that they're available at the super-cheap price of $65 for four days until January 15 - that's Thursday of this week! Get 'em while they're hot and save a few bucks. As always, early bird tickets and camping tickets will go on sale on February 14.

Did you know that you can follow the GrassRoots Festival on Twitter? We're at http://twitter.com/GrassRootsFest - so if you're a twitterer (tweeter? twit?) you can "follow" us and see what we're listening to, working on, etc. Nothing fancy, but it might give you some fun insider views on the strange musings of our team.

We've also got a Facebook fan page and a MySpace page, so if you do the social networking thang, join up with us at your network of choice!

We've also started a "lending group" with Kiva.org. If you don't know about Kiva, you should - they do really, really cool work in the emerging microlending/microfinancing sector. Basically, most regular people in third-world countries don't have the collateral or assets that large banking corporations require in order to fund a loan. What Kiva has done is make it possible, through smaller organizations called "field partners," for people in wealthier nations to directly fund small business loans for entrepreneurs in the third world. You make a loan of $25 to an entrepreneur of your choice (there are profiles set up on the website so you can choose what sort of business you'd like to help fund), and several other people join in with loans as well. Kiva distributes the money to the businessperson, who then repays the loan over a period of several months to a year. You get your money back, and you can re-loan it if you want, or just withdraw it. The entrepreneur gets funded in a good, honest, transparent way. Everybody wins! Kiva has won oodles of awards in the non-profit industry for the great work that they do, so we thought it'd be a fun thing to share with you. It's easy to join our lending group - once you've created an account, click on the word "community," do a search for "grassroots," and we're the first thing that comes up.

Looks like that's all the business we've got for today. Remember that you can post comments on this blog, so if you're thinking about anything in particular, feel free to leave a note and let us know!