Nothing in this world is certain, except death, taxes…and the growing cognitive dissonance that is exploiting your labor just to be able to pay for the fleeting joys of life. It's a harsh reality that music fans, especially Gen Z, are particularly attuned to as they square off against perceived corporate adversaries like Ticketmaster.
But Arizona-based independent music festival M3F(opens in a new tab) posits an alternative to coughing up unfettered ticketing fees to feed capitalism's ruthless miasma(opens in a new tab). What if you knew exactly where each dollar of your ticket sale went — and, even better, what if those dollars were making a difference in our communities? Is making memories while also driving charitable impact the way forward for the live music industry?
From picnic to $4.4M powerhouse
M3F's story begins in 2004, launched as a single-day festival thrown by Wespac Construction(opens in a new tab), a general contracting and construction management firm that operates around the Phoenix area and is still the festival's core partner.
As a cooler, more community-driven version of an end-of-the-year gala or fundraiser, its initial incarnation was known more formally as the McDowell Mountain Music Festival, offering live music to Wespac employees and members of the community. It was a single-stage event with just 2,000 attendees, complete with homestyle picnicking and a sea of lawn chairs.
Almost 20 years later, M3F is more impactful than its early founders could have imagined, expanding to a two-day, multi-stage festival at Phoenix's Margaret T. Hance Park and operating as one of the only 100 percent nonprofit music festivals in the country. It's on par with the likes of other regional music events like Columbia, Maryland's All Things Go(opens in a new tab) or Atlanta's Shaky Knees Festival(opens in a new tab), and it's not that far off from larger mid-sized festivals either, like Manchester, Tennessee's Bonnaroo(opens in a new tab).
In 2022, the festival reached its biggest numbers yet, welcoming 30,000 attendees into its philanthropic mission. "We donated $1.2 million to 30-plus charities, and we're still donating throughout the course of a year," explained M3F's festival manager, Warner Bailey. Over its history, the festival has raised more than $4.4 million for charities, including organizations focused on the arts, education, environment, and community welfare.
The scope of the effort has led the festival to introduce the M3F Fund(opens in a new tab), a year-round initiative supporting local organizations. "We launched the M3F Fund as a separate website that tracks exactly how we're using the money and to who, and how they are using the money," Bailey said, describing what the festival calls a "365-day ecosystem" of live music and charity that involves continued check-ins with beneficiaries and even social media collaborations(opens in a new tab). "Transparency is big for us."
M3F is tapping into a national dissatisfaction with the status quo.
The festival's model is built on a horizontal system of volunteer networks, charity sponsors, and labor swapping — about as close to communal bartering as you can get in this day and age. Wespac still handles a lot of the festival's logistics coordination, like finding local fencing and staging companies to donate free materials for festival staff to manage, or offering up company volunteers. Brand partners and nonprofits supply additional services, labor, and products. All of it attempts to reduce expenses and ensure that the majority of the festival's revenue, whether derived through ticket sales, concessions, or merchandise, goes to its nonprofit beneficiaries, not operations or overhead.
The event isn't sacrificing quality for its mission, packing the lineup(opens in a new tab) with acts that range from big hitters like Maggie Rogers and Quinn XCII, to indie faves like Toro y Moi, Del Water Gap, and COIN.
In an industry generating just as much ire as cash these days, M3F is happy to be succeeding at not making a profit.
"We really make a conscious effort to keep prices as low as we can while still being able to generate as much donation as possible." Bailey said. "We want to be inclusive for fans that have both been with us for years, but also a younger cohort that is being forced to pay $100, $200, $300, $700 to see some of these acts."
Their success in building out a younger audience, one that's just as disenchanted with the current state of live music as older festival-goers, suggests that M3F is tapping into a national dissatisfaction with the status quo. It's a trend that many artists are more than willing to join, including headliner Maggie Rogers,(opens in a new tab) who is centering social causes(opens in a new tab) on her latest tour.
"I think the younger cohort cares about doing good," Bailey reflected. "They're socially conscious. They care about giving back, and they care about companies that do so and try to align with them."
M3F is a calling card for community support
At its core, the counter model also shows that the music industry can still be a vehicle for tangible good in the world, including better treatment of the artists making any of it possible.
Terra Lopez is the community manager overseeing artist partnerships for Backline(opens in a new tab), a 3-year-old national nonprofit organization partnering with M3F(opens in a new tab) in its mission to build a safer, better music industry through access to mental health services. "We service everyone in the industry, including artists, management promoters, venue staff, crew members, security staff, and their families," Lopez said.
The organization was built to respond to what its founders saw as a pattern of hurt, loss, and grief among music professionals, and to fill a mental wellness void in the industry, she explained. In 2022, Backline helped 819 individuals access mental healthcare(opens in a new tab) within a network of 416 providers in 48 states, connecting the music world with case management, support groups, and direct wellness services like talk-based therapy, breathwork, and meditation.
Supported entirely by fundraising, the organization is not only one of M3F's nonprofit beneficiaries, it's also going on its second year of providing on-the-ground services to M3F staff and artists backstage.
"If folks needed to talk, or if they wanted to learn more about Backline, we were there and available. This year, we'll be back, but with even a bigger presence, making sure that every artist has the opportunity to come talk to us if they need," Lopez explained.
M3F's 365-day mission to promote equity, positive change, and resource access also impacts the local community through the work of beneficiaries like Phoenix-based music education nonprofit Rosie's House(opens in a new tab). Founded in 1996, the organization provides more than 20,000 free music lessons to children(opens in a new tab), predominantly from lower-income households, in Maricopa County on an annual basis as an M3F partner since its beginning.
"Through music, we support youth as they develop their full creative and personal potential," said Becky Bell Ballard, CEO of the music academy. "Our end game is to make sure students, who wouldn't have the opportunity of music education, have that opportunity and have all the advantages that music education provides for a child. The community has really stepped up to fill this gap of equity in education in Arizona."
Rosie's House is also one of the partners that provides festival volunteers each year, demonstrating the symbiotic relationship that the nonprofit model promotes. Bell Ballard noted M3F is the only festival she's aware of that is generating this type of impact through the arts. "We at Rosie's House are developing future musicians, artists, storytellers. And it's just really important that those future storytellers are representative of the entire community," she said.
Festivals are giving new meaning to future of live music
Chronicling a wider, cyclical trend, festivals are once again on the come-up, re-cementing their place as top money-earners in the music industry. Shifting perceptions of the worth of venue, arena, and stadium shows — which are under fire for their rising costs(opens in a new tab) and associations with accused monopolies like Live Nation and Ticketmaster(opens in a new tab) — seem to be pushing many back out into the lawns and amphitheaters of music festivals, which at least offer a chance to spend more time with a variety of artists and fellow music listeners.
As TIME reported(opens in a new tab) in 2019, festivals have evolved from a (traditionally free) opportunity to commune publicly with others into a facet of the "experiential economy," which shifts consumers away from investments in physical goods and towards events, travel, and other memory-making opportunities. Now, in the receding shadow of COVID-19 lockdowns and the emerging shadow of a potential economic downturn(opens in a new tab), the salience of those experiences is heightened.
Industry titans, like Coachella, are also facing competition against new for-profit festival models, even as they see jaw-dropping attendance(opens in a new tab). Events like 2023's Re:SET Concert Series(opens in a new tab) (headlined by alt favorites(opens in a new tab) Boy Genius, Steve Lacy, and LCD Soundsystem) are reviving an unmoored form of festival-going. Made partially in the image of dead events like the emo-favorite Warped Tour, the festival concert series allows artists to merge the geographical range of an arena tour with the shared logistics of a festival set-up.
It makes sense that a new wave of interest in festivals would follow in the wake of a global health crisis(opens in a new tab), and that it would feed off the pent-up desires of young people now searching for forms of community and expression. Socially-focused festivals, whether that's fostered through village-like venues or a more accessible, community-driven model that puts social welfare first, offer responses to the criticisms of live music in the COVID era.
"I feel COVID really exacerbated issues that were already there," Lopez said, from the perspective of Backline's focus on mental health in the world of music. "But in the industry, we were taught to just roll with it, to go with it. And I think the pandemic brought everything up to the surface and made it completely undeniable. So now, we're starting to have these conversations as a whole in society."
The problems of profit over emotional and physical health, of exploitative systems taking advantage of individuals seeking connection, are just a microcosm of much larger social questions: How do we enjoy art in fellowship? How do we more closely align our consumption with our values? How can we ensure that individuals feel empowered in the intersections of identity, art, and community?
As M3F heads into its 19th year of revelry, filled with music, creativity, and a touch of personalized care for all involved, its nonprofit model shines as proof that the power of art is stronger than one might think, and that the future of live music can be one for good, not greed.
