Furnace Fest Community: A Public Conversation

Furnace Fest Pre-Show

September 22, 2022.

Abstract

As part of Furnace Fest 2022’s official pre-fest event at TrimTab Brewing, Nate Myrick and I planned to moderate a public conversation, Q&A, and interview for the benefit of the Furnace Fest Community. We worked together with the event organizers to schedule the event, identify conversation topics, and invite participants, and we planned to share some of our initial research findings following 2021’s fieldwork and 2022’s preparatory research leading up to the festival. In addition to the two of us, we had confirmed two of Furnace Fest’s organizers and one member of the Furnace Fest Community moderator team. The schedule of the day included our talkbacks scheduled before, in between, and after several bands booked for the event.

Things did not go as planned! I was delayed after missing my connecting flight out of Charlotte, NC, and was on track to arrive halfway through the event. Nate started the event with our partners/friends on the festival staff, but all involved agreed that it was not the appropriate venue for a reflective, introspective conversation, so we aborted the talkback portion of the event and let the show proceed without our participation.

We nonetheless believe that the community would welcome this conversation, albeit in a different format and/or at a different place. Thinking ahead to 2023, we’re considering quieter, more intimate spaces that encourage conversation.