Rick Walker posted this good news on facebook!

I created some confusion about the future of the Y2K International Live Looping Festival in the past year because I had announced that I was giving it up and retiring from doing
it. This has changed.

This is going to be a rather long post but I want to be clear about how the festival is going to proceed (with some very exciting new changes, globally)

Sooooooo………..

What happened was that I wanted a smooth transition to occur between the volunteers who wanted to keep the festival going and the way I’ve done it in the past (which was to take on the lion’s share of the work) and I felt very burned out from having worked on the festival for free for 12 months out of last year and felt my artistry was really suffering because of it.

Three things happened that mitigated that approach, however:

1) I had a very busy year and just didn’t have time until late in the game to try and train people
2) A couple of people who I had dearly hoped would take the festival over ended up not being
reliable and I felt insecure about the festival’s future.
3) Several people stepped forward and told me that they’d help me continue by taking some significant load off of my back, so I could get back to being an artist again.

To whit: Maha Taitano, became a completely reliable, hard working, and enormously resourceful and quick learning assistant to me. Her help was just invaluable and , honestly, gave me the renewed energy and excitement to continue. Her coordination of front of house, MC-ing (a huge load off of my shoulders not to have to MC all 30 hours of the festival as in past years), video projection and many loose end jobs, Steve Uccello, completely took up the publicity and did a fantastic job as a relative newbie. Trevor McClaine took on the mantle of the sound system (with generous donations of sound and lights from his father, Daniel Thomas), Rodent did another incredibly professional job of stage managing, Fabio Anile created the poster and manned the website (thanks to Chris Roberts generous donations to keep it running) and, to top it all of, my brother Bill and wife, Chris really helped out with transportation, housing and cleaning. Bill also really was a stalwart in helping artists get on and off stage during the marathon of the festival.

We all did a fantastic job this year, it was a really fairly stressful year (aside from some minor prima-donnisms) and I learned that I still love doing it and participating in it when I’m not overly crazed from too much work.

So. I think I will accept more help in the future and delegate even more
tasks but stay in charge of the shape of the festival (from a performers’ standpoint) and the overall vibe of the festival.

We are a team now, however, and I really trust and value advice and offers of improvement from these amazing people who put the festival on this year.

Additionally, Florence, Rome, Koln, Berlin, possibly, Munchen, Singapore, Osaka and perhaps a few other cities are going to officially join the festival in doing satellite festivals around the world in the next several years.

I’m so excited about this that I can’t tell you. For me, it’s a dream come true.

I probably will never make it as gigantic as last year (70 artists from 17 countries in 6 days in 3 cities) and think the festival will probably end up around 50 artists from however many countries in 6 days in 3 cities.

This makes a much more ‘doable concert schedule’ A date for headliners and featured performers in San Jose and San Francisco and three nights and two days of main festival in Santa Cruz.

APPLICATION for the FESTIVAL and RULES of PERFORMANCE will be posted on the website at www.y2kloopfest.com.

I will start taking applications to play the festival on August 1st (and NOT before) unless an artist is from very far away or are balancing important touring schedule considerations.

Please respect this boundary. I want a minimum of 9 months of each year to be an artist who doesn’t have to be working on the festival. Remember, I am doing this for free.

Additionally, as in past years…………I will continue to favor performances of artists who come from very far away (out of the country or from far across the country) and I will also tend to try and balance participation between artists who have played before and artists who have not played before giving
precedence to artists who have been consistently strong crowd pleasers and artists who have consistently supported the festival since it’s inception.

Additionally, I will continue to try and encourage relative and sometimes even completely inexperienced newbies to the festival in the early hours of each of the weekend days.

It’s not lost on me that people as talented as Zoe Keating, last years, Laurie Amat and this year’s Pete Novembre have been newbies at this festival and I want to encourage the building of community and the encouragement and
nurturance of new artistry. This is hugely important to me and a very, very rare thing in world wide musical festivals for the most part.

My intention is to accept everyone but the demand for the festival has grown.
I will try to be as fair as possible, I promise you.

Also, like last year, If there isn’t space for everyone, then I will highly encourage people to create satellite performances to attach to the festival if they are willing to take on the entire job of producing such festivals themselves. Last year we had an impromptu “Newbie Festival” on Thursday night.

The more we build, the better it will be.

So, tomorrow, I drive to San Francisco to help take back several artists to the airport and the festival will be finally over for this year.

It was one of the best we’ve ever had and absolutely the most enjoyable for yours truly.

Bless this community and it’s wonderful artists for their participation.
My life is infinitely better because of their love, committment and talent.

much love, Rick Walker founder/director Y2K International Live Looping Festivals