Epic Encore Entertainment’s humble beginnings start with a little festival we’ve come to call Stitchfest. Mother Nature has been against Stitchfest from the beginning. There were 3 severe storms the first year, but despite thunderstorm warnings and tornado warnings everybody survived and had a blast rockin’ in the rain and slippin and sliding in the mud.
This festival has been held or “stitched” together by a group of music fanatics that have a very eclectic palate for music. Patch work started the summer of 2009 in rural Spicer by members of local band “Seven Foot Stitch”. Thanks to the generosity and open mindedness of Clifford T. Wig land owner of the farm in Spicer on which Stitchfest was patched together. Otherwise known as a grass roots festival, we like to compare Stitchfest to a “patchwork quilt” type of festival because it’s comprised of a multitude of genre’s that have “stitched” together two or more completely different genres of music together to form one unique sound.
Local band “Seven Foot Stitch” covered several genres of music of Rock n’ Roll, a couple Golden Oldies, Heavy Metal, and Rap Core a of blend Rap, Hip Hop and Metal. The summer of 2008 the members of SFS got to work clearing out all of the old farm machinery and scrap metal to make room for future stages. Stitchfest founder and lead singer David “Big Papa” Nelson coined the term “Stitched Genre” music after Lead Guitarist Nathan Pitt suggested the name Stitchfest for their upcoming debut party.
The original pipe dream for Stitchfest at first was to bring every Metal head in Minnesota together to part take in drunken debauchery. Then as reality set in… we realized that our local government wasn’t going to let that happen without getting their own piece of the pie and enforcing the rules. The local residents also didn’t like the idea of a huge Metal festival in their backyards either. The greatest realization was that “Stitched Genre’s” like “HedPE”, “Hollywood Undead”, “Moonshine Bandits” don’t have a home like Rock and Country fests do. Think about it, a person can go to Rock festivals, they can go to Hip-Hop concerts, they can go to Country music festivals but there was no place for Stitched Genre’s. Bands whose music is influenced by several genre’s of music and comprised of 2 or more genres of music. The genre’s that have been split spliced sliced and diced… we’re stitching them together and bringing you a one of a kind show. Together all the people who truly appreciate music in all of its facets have finally found a home at Stitchfest.