April 2017 TMO Newsletter (continued)

TMO: The idea of a music fest taking place within a beautiful, elegant museum setting is not common. Was providing a unique setting showcasing Fort Worth part of your original idea, or did the Museum setting come about with a little luck?

Jhangiani: "It was definitely part of the original idea and we were also lucky enough to have the cooperation of the Modern from the start so we could move forward with our first choice for location. Going back to the idea of curation, we felt the location had to be as unique as possible while still being appropriate for an event like this. We were fortunate to have worked extensively with the Modern in the past so they trusted we were going to be professional and high quality about the whole thing.

"Plus, they’re just really cool and believe in pursuing innovative ideas and partnerships like this. Fort Worth is so lucky to have all of this priceless art at our fingertips but even more so that the keepers of it are so adventurous and forward thinking."

TMO: Has this been a learning experience compared to working on other projects and special events? Now that you’re deep into the event, can you anticipate this as an annual event that grows…or was there always an intent to maintain the intimacy of 22 band event, versus an enormous, 3-day, 50-to-100 act event?

Jhangiani: "Absolutely (it has been a learning experience), and as much as we knew it would be, it’s always surprising to find how much you don’t know. That said, we are happy to find that as we expected, our experience (producing special events and working on film festivals) has prepared us very well for this project. I’m sure that if we didn’t have the experience we do, we would not have been able to put this all together in the time frame that we had between pulling the trigger and April.

"This is definitely an annual event and will see some growth. To what extent, we’ll see. It may be that Fortress Festival always remains a somewhat more focused event of 20-30 bands but our company, Fortress Presents, will definitely continue to grow and produce and promote events on a much larger scale than what we’re doing now...I can’t wait to see our hometown crowd experiencing these international touring performances."

Return to the April 2017 TMO Newsletter.

To read our past newsletters, featuring interviews with Rupert Neve, Mickey Raphael, and Lloyd Maines, please see:

August 2016 - featuring an interview with Rupert Neve
September 2016 - featuring an interview with Mickey Raphael
October 2016 - featuring part 2 of an interview with Mickey Raphael
February 2017 - featuring part 1 of an interview with Lloyd Maines
March 2017 - featuring part 2 of an interview with Lloyd Maines