Now in year two, Pilgrimage Festival hopes to, with the help of Justin Timberlake, take the event global, reports Forbes. Founders of the two-day music festival, Kevin Griffin, W. Brandt Wood and Michael Whelan, admits the first year, which drew 11,000 fans a day, was lean financially, though that wasn’t a surprise.
“Doing a festival is not for the faint of heart,” Griffin told Forbes. “When you get into any new business endeavor you quickly hear about different models that are put in your face. And the model that you see a lot of times with the festivals is first year you’re gonna lose your ass, second year you might break even and third year is the windfall where you actually start making money. First year we did lose money and that was in our business plan.”
As Pilgrimage announced the addition of Franklin resident, Justin Timberlake as producer of the event, the festival gained national attention.
Timberlake’s creative director, Trace Ayala, explains to Forbes that hometown pride was the drive to get Griffin and Timberlake involved. “[It’s] just doing something for the community where we’re gonna raise our children,” Ayala explains. “That was the main thing. We were like, ‘Here’s an opportunity we can do something super cool and obviously this is where we want to be forever and it’s something our children can enjoy down the road.’ So that was the ultimate for us.”
Read more at Forbes.
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