After a dark, two-year, COVID-induced hiatus, Pickathon will finally return, August 4-7, to its iconic Pendarvis Farm location in Happy Valley, OR. The festival released its lineup, which will showcase a plethora of excellent, wide-ranging acts: indie rock mainstay Built to Spill, NYC hip-hop duo Armand Hammer, folk/blues/gospel artist Valerie June, Australia-based hip-hop artist Sampa the Great, English jazz saxophonist Nubya Garcia, electric blues guitarist Cedric Burnside, San Diego soul band Thee Sacred Souls, experimentalist/multi-instrumentalist L’Rain, psychedelic alt-rockers Inner Wave, and many more.
“This is going to be the best Pickathon ever, between the new design, the lineup, and everything we’ve got planned,” Zale Schoenborn, Pickathon founder and director, said in a release about the announcement. “We’ve always dreamed about bringing together a decentralized, deep cut, genre-agnostic lineup like this. It took us a while to build all these connections to these different worlds, but it’s paying off now.”
Known for running counter to the more unlikeable aspects of modern music fests (waste, parking lots, inflated concession prices) Pickathon set a new standard for its impressive waste-reduction standards—achieved via a policy banning single-use items—and innovative outdoor festival stages that work with nature instead of against it (such as the beloved Woods Stage nestled right inside a forest).
This year Pickathon promises to be “a new world,” taking advantage of its scenery like never before. “When the sun is high in the sky, you’ll discover new forested music stages, set under the natural shade of the evergreen trees of the Pacific Northwest,” the festival’s website read. “As the sun sets, you’ll move to meadows with sweeping vistas of Mt Hood to enjoy open air programming on stages that come alive at night.”
“The two years off because of COVID gave us the space to dream up the Pickathon we always imagined," Schoenborn explained. "And the outpouring of support from the community was the energy we needed to make it possible."
Tickets for Pickathon are on sale now, and selling fast. See the full lineup below:
FULL LINEUP FOR PICKATHON 2022:
Valerie June
Goth Babe
Sons of Kemet
Faye Webster
Built to Spill
Nate Smith + KINFOLK
Hurray for the Riff Raff
Sampa The Great
Nubya Garcia
Chapo Trap House
Quantic
Armand Hammer
Lomelda
Cedric Burnside
Mike and the Moonpies
Inner Wave
L'Rain
Pearl Charles
Cassandra Jenkins
Yasmin Williams
TV Priest
Thee Sacred Souls
Feufollet
Emma-Jean Thackray
Guerilla Toss
FEELS
S.G. Goodman
Frankie and the Witch Fingers
Margo Cilker
billy woods
ELUCID
Deeper
Hannah Cohen
Jake Xerxes Fussell
The Archive Project
Zephaniah OHora
Sweeping Promises
Frank Fairfield & Meredith Axelrod
Riley Downing
Garcia Peoples
Automatic
Michael Rault
Gabe Lee
Bella White
Rosali
Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno
David Nance
Tempers
Operator Music Band
Rachel Baiman
Off Book
Tobacco City
Kassi Valazza
The Onlies
