The BBQ VIII: New Planets Move Their Festival to Stone Bend Farm

New Planets have spent eight years building a festival out of their own address book, and this weekend they move it. The BBQ VIII runs Friday, August 28 and Saturday, August 29 at Stone Bend Farm in Newfield, NY, twenty minutes south of Ithaca, with multiple stages and better than thirty acts. They’re selling 350 tickets.

The music runs Friday and Saturday, both days on the main stage and both nights well past it. Camping checkout is noon on Sunday. Day passes are sold for Friday and for Saturday.

This is the third address the BBQ has had. It started on the old offsite campgrounds at GrassRoots in the Finger Lakes, which is about as fitting an origin as an upstate festival can claim, then spent a brief stint at Black Bear Studio before landing at Stone Bend Farm.

Stone Bend Farm is not a new music venue either. It has hosted shows for years, local bands and nationally touring acts both, so the festival is not breaking in a field that has never seen a stage.

The new field

Stone Bend Farm sits at 196 Porter Hill Road, a working farm with a timber-framed barn and a wood oven. The farm isn’t renting grass to a promoter and stepping back. It’s running the pizza and the drinks itself all weekend, which is a different arrangement than most festivals have with the land they stand on.

The main stage carries the Toro name this year, sponsored alongside The Highly Connected. Two more stages open at midnight, and the schedule gives neither of them an end time.

That is a lot of programming for 350 people. It also explains the shape of the running order. Rather than long gaps between bands, the BBQ runs a full set, then a half-hour turnaround act, then another full set, straight through from noon to midnight. Nobody stands around waiting for a changeover.

Gates open Friday at 11am.

Friday, August 28

Evan Horne opens at noon. New Planets take the stage at nine on their own festival, and Sophistafunk follow them.

Time	Artist
11am–12pm	Gates open
12–1pm	Evan Horne
1–1:30pm	Proper Philth
1:30–2:30pm	Kid Bess & The Magic Ring
2:30–3pm	Hot Cole
3–4pm	Dom Martyr
4–4:30pm	Hot Cole
4:30–5:30pm	Fabi World Music
5:30–6pm	Proper Philth
6–7pm	Madska
7–7:30pm	Deep Sea Siren
7:30–8:30pm	Motherwort
8:30–9pm	Deep Sea Siren
9–10pm	New Planets
10–10:30pm	DJ Judah
10:30–11:30pm	Sophistafunk
11:30pm–12am	DJ Judah

Sophistafunk are a Syracuse trio built on organ, drums and a rapper, and they’ve been working rooms around this part of the state long enough that a late Friday slot in a field suits them.

Thirty acts against 350 tickets works out to about one band for every dozen people on the property.

The BBQ VIII, by the numbers

The half-hour slots are worth reading properly rather than skimming past. Hot Cole plays twice on Friday, Proper Philth twice, Deep Sea Siren twice, and DJ Judah bookends Sophistafunk. Those are not filler. They are the connective tissue that keeps a small field moving while gear gets swapped on the main stage, and at a festival this size they end up being the sets people actually talk about on the drive home.

Fabi World Music at half four and Madska at six carry the afternoon between them, and Motherwort at half seven is the last full set before the headline stretch.

At midnight it splits. G-House takes DJ Tuggle, DJ Gourd, Proper Philth and DJ Shattered Moons. The Campfire Unplugged Stage has Prof Keys & Friends, for anyone who’s had enough low end for one day.

Saturday, August 29

Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad headline at nine. The Rochester dub band has been part of this scene since the early 2000s, and BTJ has been writing about them for most of that.

Time	Artist
11am–12pm	Badhand
12–1pm	Delaques
1–1:30pm	DJ Art-V
1:30–2:30pm	Colors Do Som
2:30–3pm	DJ Art-V
3–4pm	Scuba Jerry
4–4:30pm	DJ Shattered Moons
4:30–5:30pm	Heavy Bone & The Good Time Zydeco Band
5:30–6pm	Lil Stupid Ass
6–7pm	Fall Creek Brass Band
7–7:30pm	Lina Luv
7:30–8:30pm	New Planets & Friends
8:30–9pm	Lina Luv
9–10pm	Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad
10–10:30pm	TGRTGR
10:30–11:30pm	Comb Down
11:30pm–12am	TGRTGR

The run from six o’clock is the one to plan around. Fall Creek Brass Band into New Planets & Friends into Giant Panda, then Comb Down at half ten to finish it.

Fall Creek Brass Band are an Ithaca institution at this point, a street-band-sized horn section that works better outdoors than in any room they get booked into. Putting them at six, while there is still light and people are eating, is the correct call. By the time Giant Panda take the stage three hours later the field will already be warm.

Earlier in the day, Heavy Bone & The Good Time Zydeco Band at half four will turn the field into a dance floor before dinner. Zydeco at a jam-leaning festival is an underrated piece of programming. It asks nothing of the audience except that they move, which is exactly what a Saturday afternoon in late August needs.

Before that, Colors Do Som at half one and Scuba Jerry at three hold the early afternoon, and Delaques open the day proper at noon after Badhand get the gates going at eleven.

After midnight, Cuci Amador of Afrobeta takes G-House with DJ Gourd and LOGS. Fabi World Music plays the Campfire Unplugged Stage.

The band that throws it

New Planets are an Ithaca band working psychedelic rock against world, funk and electro, and they have played Ithaca Reggae Fest and most of the regional circuit. They play twice: the nine o’clock Friday slot under their own name, and a looser New Planets & Friends set on Saturday evening.

A band that runs its own festival tends to book the people it actually goes to see. Half the names on this bill are playing within an hour of home.

That local weighting is the reason the BBQ has lasted eight years without a headliner budget. Rather than paying for a name that draws a crowd who leave after the set, it books people the Ithaca and Syracuse crowds already turn out for, and puts them somewhere worth camping. It also means the bill changes shape every year as the regional scene does, which is a more honest reflection of what is happening in upstate music than most festival posters manage.

Breathwork, acroyoga and sound, all weekend

Running alongside the music all weekend is a full Healing Arts programme, presented by Attuned Life Massage & Wellness.

Friday opens with Zodiac Breathwork at one, then Qi Gong with Brian at half two, Soulful Flow with Lara Green at four, Freeing Our Voices at six, and a Solar & Lunar Circle from half seven to half nine.

Saturday starts at half ten with Holotropic Breathwork and Yoga for the Spine running together, then Menstrual Empowerment alongside an Acroyoga workshop from Acro Ithaca at noon, Qi Gong with Sasha at half one, Laughter Yoga at three, Somatic Sounds at half four, and Weaving Hearts: Sacred Relation & Ancient Wisdoms from ten to midnight.

Bringing kids

Aspen Grove Preschool runs a kids tent, there are retro movies screening camp-in style, and kids under 12 get in free. Ages 13 to 17 pay $30 for the weekend or $15 for a day.

Family friendly gets claimed by a lot of festivals that mean nothing more than “we did not ban children.” A staffed kids tent and a movie screening is a different level of effort, and it changes who can realistically come for the whole weekend rather than ducking out after the early sets.

Food and drink

Four operators, all of them local:

• Stone Bend Farm, wood-fired pizza and beverages
• Van Noble Farm, Righteous BBQ
• Copper Horse Coffee, coffee, breakfast and ice cream
• Luau Lads, cocktails and mobile bar

Copper Horse doing breakfast is the one campers should note. Waking up in a field with no coffee inside ten miles is a solved problem here.

Camping and tickets

Tent sites come with showers and outhouses. Camping is priced separately from admission, so a weekend on site needs both tickets.

Pass	Advance	At the gate
Weekend	$55	$65
Friday day pass	$30	$35
Saturday day pass	$30	$35
Weekend tent camping	$30	$35
Weekend car camping Sold out	$60	n/a
Weekend small RV, 20ft and under	$100	n/a
Weekend large RV, over 20ft	$150	n/a
Kids 13 to 17, weekend	$30	n/a
Kids 13 to 17, day	$15	n/a
Kids under 12	Free	Free

Weekend car camping is sold out. Tent sites and RV spots were still listed when this went up.

Those are the base prices. Through Eventbrite with fees you’ll see about $33.85 for a day and $60.54 for the weekend. The listing carries a no refunds policy.

Fifty-five in advance covers two days, multiple stages and thirty-odd bands. There are only 350 of them, so it’s worth sorting before you drive out.

Tickets are on Eventbrite.

The BBQ VIII, August 28 and 29, Stone Bend Farm, 196 Porter Hill Road, Newfield, NY. Main stage sponsored by Toro and The Highly Connected. Set times, pricing and photographs from the festival.