A festival powered by the sun featuring live music, eco-friendly vendors, and workshops led by nationally acclaimed climate change advocates is coming to the Scenic City the weekend of August 20-22.
Get Off the Grid Fest 2021 will take place at Camp Jordan Park in East Ridge. The opening ceremony takes place at 5 p.m. Friday with an invocation from local Muskogee Creek elder Tom Blue Wolf. Stanford University professor Dr. Mark Jacobson, who helped develop the Green New Deal, will be the keynote speaker, offering a TED talk Saturday at 11 a.m. and addressing the entire festival at 6 p.m. Saturday.
Forty regional and local bands will be taking the three stages, including Randall Bramblett, Jim Lauderdale, and Strung Like a Horse. In addition, educational workshops with more than 80 speakers will be held over the course of the weekend.
Get Off the Grid Fest seeks to expand the concept of what it means to live "off the grid,” not just in energy production but also in practicing sustainable food cultivation and improving personal health and wellness through herbal remedies and physical routine.
“Ultimately, being ‘off the grid’ means producing your own power, taking charge of your own health,” festival director Bill Fleming says. “It’s not hiding in a bunker and isolating from neighbors but living in a community where power is actually decentralized and people have an opportunity to produce and live sustainably on their own, not reliant on corporations.”
Event organizers say interest in solar power ramped up during the pandemic shutdowns but is most prevalent amongst the younger generation. As a result of the interest shown by that age group, festival organizers have enlisted the help of 150 East Ridge High School and Chattanooga State students in the creation of a solar-powered trailer that will be capable of providing disaster relief in the event of a crisis.
The completed project will be “plugged in” on Sunday. The students will also take workshops Friday morning where they will get to test electric vehicles, learn about job opportunities in sustainable energy, and learn more about climate change.
Open to all ages, the festival will also feature a family-friendly “Gnome Zone,” a kids’ space with educational activities.
More about The Get Off the Grid Fest:
Get Off the Grid Fest is a solar-powered, family-friendly, zero-waste producing, Leave No Trace event. The festival is three days of music, learning, and fun powered by the Sun. The community can hear more about Get Off the Grid Fest at events leading up to the festival, beginning with Riverfront nights on July 31 and at Chattanooga Hemporium on August 1. Three-day passes or single-day passes can be purchased online at GetOffTheGridFest.net.