GROVE FEST
Each year, Grove Fest brings thousands of people from all over the St. Louis area to celebrate the beautiful Grove community. This street festival is free and includes a Merchant Village, Food Village (featuring restaurants in the Grove), family area, street performers and major names on the main stage. Blank Slate partners with local leaders in the Grove to provide enough excitement to keep all ages entertained throughout the day!
The Event:
For the past several years, Blank Slate has brought our events experience to bear in the heart of St. Louis’s legendary Grove neighborhood. It’s Grove Fest, and our role of programming main stage and street talent for the festival is essential to attracting people from all over the region each year. We are also responsible for coordinating all stage, sound and lighting needs.
The Challenges:
Blank Slate is tasked with putting on a serious banger on a very limited budget. But we love to help the City achieve great things. And, we keep upping the bar each year!
Any large street festival involves coordinating with a long list of names (vendors, businesses, police, etc.) throughout the day; it’s extremely important that all partners involved know they can trust Blank Slate’s leadership–and know we’re there to help however we can.
The Blank Slate Solutions:
We’re able to work with limited resources to create a totally unique and custom headline performance every year, delivering a value that exceeds what’s normally achievable in this budget range. For example, booking a smaller-budget national act, but pitching them to feature local artists in their show to create something totally special (like Aaron Carter’s set featuring appearances by Mvstermind, Scrub and Bates), or by giving local talent a bigger budget than normal. They’ve been able to pull out some extra stops–like flying in special guests and upping their stage production quality (Jay E Presents in 2019, DJ Mahf and Co in 2021, Mvstermind in 2022).
2023’s GroveFest lineup featured Big Freedia as main stage headliner. We’ve got some great momentum, so who knows what we’ll be able to accomplish with the great people in the Grove in coming years?!
THE RESULTS:
Continually mounting a smooth-running and well-attended Grove Fest event with a major headline set at an extremely affordable price for the client.
Blank Slate has been nothing short of amazing to work with. Back in 2017, which was my first year as the lead for Grovefest, Colin came in and took control of our Main Stage and music lineup after an employee resigned 4 weeks before the festival. If not for Blank Slate’s leadership and experience the festival would not have been a success. Six years later we have continued to develop a strong relationship and Blank Slate is now a part of the foundation of the Grovefest Experience.
Abdul-Kaba Abdullah
Executive Director, Park Central Development
