HUNTER — The Mountain Jam music festival is set to return in the summer of 2023, but it won’t be at the site’s original location at Hunter Mountain.
In a one-sentence update on the Mountain Jam website, festival organizers announced that the event would return to the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in 2023.
The festival was founded by Radio Woodstock President Gary Chetkof in conjunction with Gov’t Mule singer/guitarist Warren Haynes in 2005, with the rock event running for 14 consecutive years at Hunter Mountain.
The festival’s last year at the Hunter resort in 2018 was headlined by alternative country artist Sturgill Simpson, contemporary British rock act alt-J and Hawaiian folk singer Jack Johnson, who closed the festival’s last night of music on June 17.
The festival then moved to Bethel Woods for a four-day event from June 13-16, two months shy of the 50th anniversary of the original Woodstock festival, which was held in August 1969 at the same Bethel site.
That edition of the festival, headlined by country legend Willie Nelson and Gov’t Mule, was supposed to be followed by a return to Bethel Woods in 2020 headlined by the Trey Anastasio Band, but the event was canceled March 25, 2020, due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.
After declining to present festivals in 2021 and 2022, Mountain Jam will now return next summer.
“We are looking forward to seeing everybody in Bethel Woods in 2023,” the festival’s website states.
Hunter Town Supervisor Sean Mahoney said Monday that there is still uncertainty about holding large-scale gatherings like Mountain Jam due to COVID.
“Given the pandemic, we didn’t really know whether or not live events of that scale were going to come back in general,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that it’s not coming to Hunter, but that’s a Vail Resorts decision. We certainly hope that in the future, that there are potentially more live events coming, given that they’re safe.”
Vail Resorts is the owner of Hunter Mountain.
Mahoney said he hoped that the town would still be an attraction in the future for music festivals like the country-music bash Taste of Country, which ran at Hunter Mountain from 2013 to 2018.
“Hunter Mountain was an amazing venue for Mountain Jam and Taste of Country,” Mahoney said. “So we’re holding out hope for the future that events of that style and type come back to the area. The Town of Hunter will be willing to support them anyway we can.”
Mahoney said there is a thirst in the Hunter community to attract more events like Mountain Jam, which presented headliners including Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Wilco, The Black Keys and Robert Plant & The Sensational Space Shifters during its 14-year run on the mountain.
“I think there’s a lot of support for events of this type at Hunter Mountain,” he said. “It’s great for the local economy, it’s great for the local businesses. But I think the reason why they’re at Bethel Woods are business decisions not having anything to do with the town.”
Chetkof did not respond to questions Monday asking for comment on the festival’s return to Bethel Woods.