Hidden Gems: Meet Noah Cameron of Forest Trail Music Festival

Today we’d like to introduce you to Noah Cameron.

Hi Noah, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve never really seen myself as an entrepreneur- I didn’t care about school or professional goals and only wanted to focus on the things that I enjoyed, which at the time was primarily playing music. By my senior year in high school I’d skip several classes each day and sit in the practice room watching videos and practicing piano and drums. With no real plan or direction, I decided to attend a local community college and study music more. After a year and a half of various classes, I ultimately decided that academia wasn’t for me- it’s not so much that I wasn’t capable, it was more so that I had no desire to learn the conventional way from books and lectures, I need to do things my way.

For the next few years, I was working at various restaurants around town, holding as many as 4 different jobs at once and playing music when I could. During this same time, I also started hitchhiking. I have travelled from San Diego, CA to Manistee, MI 3-4 times, along with several other trips to Florida, New York, and the Grand Canyon. I definitely fell in love with the idea of meeting new people in a travel setting. There’s something really special about having a one on one conversation in someone’s car while travelling for hours or sometimes days on end with them. I met and heard the stories from people from all walks of life and learned more on my travels than I could ever learn in a book or a classroom- these types of experiences really connected me with the good in humanity and reshaped my perspective to make me who I am today.

Fast forward to Summer 2020, I was 21 years old and Covid just happened. We live in Northern Michigan and a lot of the social restrictions were being slowly lifted by this point. Since all of the music festivals that had shaped us throughout our childhood were cancelled earlier in the year, my mom joked that we should have a small gathering of our own. My brother, Bryce, and I decided that is sounds like fun and that we could pull it off.

Over the next few months, we built a stage by hand with trees from our grandparent’s property and added a lighted trail to a small camping field. In late August of 2020, we held the 1st annual Forest Trail Music Festival. Our parents are both in the medical field and we were able to organize the event in a way that attendance was capped, temperatures and overall wellness were checked at the gate, social distancing was in place, and over-sanitization was the norm. With around 50-60 of our friends on site, we brought in a dozen bands to play music over the course of the weekend for a safe and successful event.

As the years went on, we continued to work on and grow the event into something more and more special. I remember one of the first years sitting in the back of the crowd thinking “This is it. This is what I want to create for the rest of my life.” Every year, this message holds more and more true- which I am extremely fortunate to have found at such a young age.

Soon after, we expended to a summer concert series, created a new nonprofit, and have done so much more than we could’ve ever imagined, and we still know that we are just getting started.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I generally carry the feeling that I have had a smooth road and am incredibly fortunate to be where we are at. It’s probably because of my hitchhiking time and all the personal challenges and struggle I have heard and seen directly- some of which will stay with me forever. That’s not to say that I don’t work hard and there aren’t struggles in what we do, I just think it’s all very relative and are overall fortunate to deal with the struggles that we face.

In terms of the festival and nonprofit work, it’s always a challenge to make ends meet financially. I have personally invested nearly a quarter of my regular income, at times much more, to get us to where we are today. I definitely don’t see it as a venture to make money. Its something I know is important, and I’m incredibly confident makes a difference and is worth every second of work and every penny that it takes to make happen.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The festival itself is still a baby, we are just 6 years in now, but we have really started hitting our stride. We bring in over 20 bands, craft vendors, amazing food vendors, workshops, yoga, tie dye, and more. If you’ve been to a grass-roots festival, you get the general idea, but there are a few things we try to do to set ourselves apart.

I think what sets us apart the most is our team and the people that have our backs. At the end of the day, that’s all we really have. No amount of money, influence, or otherwise will give Forest Trail more heart than the people making it happen. There are so many incredible individuals that come together and work their butts off year-round to make the festival as special as it is- There is just so much talent and passion, it really is still unbelievable to me. And the common theme is people coming together to do the right things, for the right reasons. We have a true a community in it’s best form and it’s very humbling knowing that I’ll never be able to repay them or thank them enough for their efforts- and yet they’re still here making it happen every year.

As far as festival operations, I’m personally really proud of our hospitality in general, but more so artist hospitality. It’s our philosophy that when an artist enters, they are treated like royalty to the best of our ability. When an artist feels good, they play well. When they play well, everyone in the audience has a better time too.

The same philosophy applies to attendees too, we try to go out of our way to make everyone as welcome as possible. Our entire team and volunteers really understand and embrace this concept and that’s a huge part of our success. With any event, you’re always going to run into people that are upset about something, or just having a bad day, but very rarely are we unable to come to some common ground; at the end of the day, everyone is there to have fun and enjoy each other’s company. I really see everyone that comes to the festival as a new extension of the Forest Trail Family.

Another important factor is the bands themselves. We spend a lot of time booking and finding the perfect bands for each year’s lineup. There is so much talent that this is a really difficult process- we honestly wish we had like 5 festivals to book for since there are so many amazing groups- but I love when people come up to me after a set and say, “Wow, I’ve never heard of these guys and they’re incredible, where do you find these people?!”

Oh, last thing! We really pride ourselves on affordable ticket pricing. While a lot of the national ‘mega festivals’ are jacking up their tickets to several hundred dollars+ with price jumps every year, we have kept our prices the same for the past 4 years and don’t intend on raising them. We also stay off of Ticketmaster, Stubhub, etc and don’t pass along any hidden fees or any other b.s. to the attendees. We believe accessibility is so important, especially in a rural community. Kids get in for free and we offer ways to volunteer for free or reduced ticket prices. We really just want to bring people together and have a good time.

Any big plans?
We try to make at least one noticeable change each year to keep attendees on their toes, but we always have new ideas and some tricks up our sleeve. We have a lot of goals for long term sustainability- We don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon.

We are also really proud to continue making changes and improvements to the festivities, the grounds, and more. This year I’ll tease that we are expanding the stage lawn area for more seating, grading the yard, and some other exciting changes that I won’t spoil 🙂

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ForestTrailMusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foresttrailmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ForestTrailMusic/