Until 2012, Columbia didn’t have a music festival.
What it did have, however, was the humble dream of Jam Room producer Jay Matheson.
“I wanted to have it downtown on Main Street. I wanted to be sure that we had good beer — not just your standard light beer offerings and things like that,” Matheson said. “And I wanted there to be a cycling component.”
As a cyclist, beer lover and music enthusiast, Matheson would have been satisfied with bikes, $100 bands and beer trucks, but that wasn’t meant to be.
“I didn’t realize you could get city funding and all of that, and then the whole thing took a crazy life of its own because then all the sudden we had to do a lot more legit stuff than we imagined,” Matheson said.
And that’s how Jam Room Music Festival came to be Columbia’s very own music festival. Located at Main and Hampton Streets, and running from noon to 10 p.m., the free festival is open all comers.
Annually, Jam Room Music Festival has grown in size and attendance. However, its available space is fixed, and according to marketing director Linda Toro, Jam Room may be approaching its maximum size.
“We have an attendance goal of 12,500, and if we get that many people it’ll probably feel pretty crowded down there,” Toro said.
Jam Room has gotten to this point thanks to the help of the city of Columbia, and its hospitality stipend, which is how the festival gets most of its funding. Additionally, Jam Room has parking and the necessary amount of police and fire marshals, thanks to its relationship with the city.
“We exist at the whim of the city, but we have a good relationship with them,” Matheson said.
And due the free music event niche that Jam Room fills, the city of Columbia has plenty of reasons to make sure Jam Room sticks around. This year’s band lineup features the likes of Superchunk, Leagues and Southern Culture on the Skids, which wasn’t easy — the festival planners have their work cut out for them getting big names.
In fact, headliner Superchunk was booked just eight weeks ago.
“If a band wants $20,000, you might offer them $15,000, then they might tell you three months later that they don’t want it. They don’t just say no, they wait,” Matheson said. “So, it’s like a chess game you’re playing with the booking agents. It’s a very difficult thing — you can’t just say a band that you want.”
“We don’t have the money to do that,” Toro added.
Clearly, the Jam Room Music Festival is still humble, but the events surrounding the music are more plentiful than ever before. This year there will be more food vendors, more kids activities and cycling events, and the Columbia Art Museum right across the street will offer free admission. Jam Room partnered with the American Diabetes Organization for a 25-mile Tour de Cure training ride, so don’t be surprised if you see some sweaty cyclists roll up at noon.
The amenities are all important, but for Matheson, good beer selection and service are absolute essentials.
“We don’t want people to wait in line for 10 minutes to get a beer,” Matheson said.
This year Jam Room has a local craft beer sponsor, Palmetto Brewing Company, a subsidiary of Budweiser and a sponsor for the festival. Though Matheson was initially wary of pairing with Budweiser, he has found that their craft beer companies are actually the perfect fit for the festival.
“It’s worked so well for them that they’ve actually applied that to other festivals, so we’ve helped other festivals get better beer because they see that people actually buy it and prefer it,” Matheson said.
Nothing goes better with good beer than good music, so the braintrust behind the Jam Room Music Festival set-list sought to put together the best show for their audience.
Matheson described the target demographic as “real music fans, those that search music out,” who he thinks will be most receptive to the festival’s bread and butter genres: indie, alt-country and punk/rock’n’roll. Sometimes the genres and the festival’s target audience are at odds — not every music-savvy college student is a country fan — but to Matheson, that’s part of the festival’s unique service.
“We’re turning people on to things that they won’t expect to be good,” he said.
As part of that mission statement, Matheson and crew are looking to bring new bands to Columbia, treat them well and hopefully have them return to become a part of the city’s burgeoning music scene.
Jam Room’s shaking up Columbia in a big way, and it’s only the festival’s third showing.
“Three years ago, we wanted to see something like this happen in Columbia,” Toro said. “That’s why we started it.”
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