Ossipee Valley Music Festival FAQ


July 27th-30th 2023
291 South Hiram Road, Hiram ME
The prices of tickets are listed for the year here if we are sold out it will indicate that there as well.
Note that each section is a dropdown with a small arrow, you will see Thursday displayed for example, but if you click the arrow you will see the day passes for the rest of the days.
Sunday 9am-6pm
Monday 9am-7pm
Tuesday 8am-8pm
Wednesday 8am-9pm
Thursday 8am-10:30 (first show at noon)
Friday 8am-10pm (first show at 10am)
Saturday 8am-11pm (first show at 10am)
Sunday 9am-4pm (last show at 4pm)
Yes! Onsite parking and camping are included in your pass. You can camp overnight with ANY pass, you just need to indicate that you plan to do this when you buy your ticket. People who come for the day must leave the day lot by midnight. You can camp near but not directly at your campsite in designated areas around the road-border.
An after dark ticket is a discounted ticket for anyone who is arriving at or after 6pm to just see the headliner/evening shows. These tickets include camping overnight (must be out by 10am) or can be used as a day pass. For example, if you are coming after work on Friday and staying Saturday and camping over Fri/Sat, you would purchase an After Dark Friday, with a full Day Saturday. Day passes include after dark, there is no need to purchase a Day and After Dark pass for the same day.
Yes! Here are some options
1. Volunteer 12 hours and receive a free 4-day pass and a merch coupon!
2. Sign up for our newsletter to receive discounts throughout the year
3. Email us at info@ossipeevalley.com for special discounts for nonprofit groups, senior living centers, military, indigenous, immigrant and other community groups.
4. If you are local pick up a shopping guide to receive a $10 coupon! This makes the cheapest ticket to the festival $25 for over 8 hours of music on Friday night!
5. If you live locally (up to Bridgton, over to Standish, down to Waterboro, over to Freedom and everywhere in that radius), you can come to Sunday which is Maine Artist Day, for FREE!
At the gate we accept cash, check or card. Most vendors accept cards, but some are cash only so plan to bring some cash or visit our Bangor Savings Bank location in downtown Cornish.
Yes-this is a moving target.
Folks who purchase tickets in advance are asked to indicate if they are camping over. We use these general numbers to estimate how full the campground will be, but your ticket does not indicate a specific site, it just indicates there will be space for you. How roomy your campsite is, or whether it is under a tree, or in an area you want to be in, depends on when you arrive.
We do not sell RV hookups online because they do sell out as early as Friday morning. You can still dry-camp with an RV anywhere you find a spot, there are generator friendly areas of the campground. There is also quiet camping for those who want no generators or electronics.
If camping has sold out for the current year it will be indicated here. Once camping has sold out we will continue to sell day tickets at the gate. If day tickets are sold out it will be indicated on the same page.
Unfortunately only ESA or Service Animals are allowed on the grounds, this includes for day and camping attendees (do not bring your dog and leave them in the car, you will be asked to have the dog removed). We currently have too limited a square footage to be able to allow dogs on site. Many of our staff are dog lovers and have pets at home, but dogs are stressed by crowds, heat, and hundreds of new dogs all at once, and they act out in surprising ways, or bark. We have additionally had experiences with agressive dogs being brought to the festival.
If you bring a service dog or ESA animal they must have paperwork, a vest, and must be at your side and under your command at all times.
Unfortunately at this point campfires are still not allowed. This is NOT our decision (we do not own the property), and we are still working to try to carve out a policy for campfires with restrictions and safeguards. We will keep this updated. You may still bring a grill if you wish to cook, or may even bring a propane stove. These are the rules as of right now, hopefully we can have campfires again soon.
We have designated areas for RVs with generators or hookups, and quiet camping.
You can bring a popup camper or totally dry RV into any area. You can car camp.
Generators are allowed in designated areas until 10pm. Please be aware of this if you are tent camping.
Everywhere else in the campground besides quiet camping, you are able to play music all night long! (so we recommend bringing ear plugs if you are a light sleeper).
We ask that you limit your campsite to your tents and a 10x10 communal area for every 5 people in your tenting group. We are limited in our capacity and sell out, so please be considerate of others and of our organization as you set up your campsite.
We ask that you be neighborly, and look out for one another and negotiate camping space and noise in a friendly way on both sides of the negotiation.
Campfires are currently not allowed, we are working to change this in the future.
Yes, we have restrooms, portapotties that are cleaned multiple times per day, and onsite hot showers that are rustic but effective. We are currently fundraising to build a brand new showerhouse!
There is potable water at every spigot on the grounds, ice is sold as the Masons booth on vendor row. Currently there is no ATM on site, but there is a bank/ATM within 5 minutes of the grounds.
Music goes until 11pm on the stage (big amplification), and starts again on Stage Too! as early as 10am. Music goes in the brews and bluegrass tent and dance barn (smaller sound systems) until 2am (drinks served until 1am).
There is quiet camping at the far end of the fairgrounds, it is marked on the map and with signs.
We have over 15 different food and drink vendors and a farmers market! Vist our vendor page for more details.
Children 17 and under are free at the event, and we have a free children's music program with loner instruments called Roots and Sprouts. We also have a children's play station that is open daily from 10am-5pm called Seedlings. This station has games, arts and crafts, and activities all day long! Visit our Kids Activities page for more details.
Yes! However they typically sell out months ahead of time. Please check out the Camping page for more details.
Nope. Get off your phone and dance!
If you need to check in with the real world, the local library in Cornish has great WIFI. Currently the local coffee shop is closed as our friends Margaret and Dan are on maternity leave!
Blankets are welcome, however please do not bring chairs that have a big awning or place a tarp or popup that will obstruct people's view. We do have shade tents at the back of the seating area, with chairs set out for those who don't bring their own. Our general chair rule is that once you put it out it becomes a communal chair and anyone can sit in it. Once you arrive you can ask the person sitting there to move to another chair. Blankets are cool, but generally they are placed in the back near the shade tents so you don't get trampled on and you can see!
You may have your own alcohol at your campsite, we ask that you do not have cans of open alcohol in the seating area, and that you do not bring cans or glass onto the dance floor.
We recommend visiting the Brews and Bluegrass tent for delicious beer and cider on tap from over 15 different local breweries!
Marijuana is legal in the state of Maine, you may have it at your campsite in legal amounts, you may not sell it.
We pride ourselves on being a family friendly, safe festival. We request that you act with the awareness of being with or around families and children, and behave with consideration towards others at all times. We do have contracted security services if any significant concerns arise.
We do have an area where dancing is allowed all the way to the stage (left hand side). For the right side we request that folks stay off to the side of the stage to dance. This is marked. Please note that while we do our best to enforce these rules sometimes (especially if an artist requests dancing at the stage), they are not possible to completely maintain! We ask that if you are in the first 10 rows that you are aware that dancing in the front may happen and plan accordingly, this is especially likely during the Saturday night headliner slot or any 'loud' band. We DO ask everyone to dance during the last 15 minutes and encore of the headliner sets and do allow dancing down in front on both sides at that point. We are a festival for everybody, including sitting & listening, dancing, and the artists themselves, who love to see a show of their own in the audience reaction.
Yes, you can find it here.
Thank you! Generally we do not fill up with volunteer spots until right before the event. We typically do not accept walk-in volunteers, but you can always ask!
We do not send a confirmation email to you when you submit your form, but as long as you see the confirmation on the website itself when you click submit you should be good! It may take several weeks for our staff to return your email, as we are also working on other projects and jobs. However, be assured that we are sifting through applications and assessing the best place to put you, and we will get back to you soon!
If you have not heard back within 30 days, please contact us at info@ossipeevalley.com
Vendors typically are always accepted onto our waitlist or 'next year' list when they apply. We limit the number of vendors in each category (i.e. type of food or type of craft), so if we already have several vendors in your line of work (common with jewelry), we may not be able to accept you. Generally we only accept applicants that hand make or sell hand made products, and prefer food vendors that work with local and organic ingredients.
You should hear an acknowledgment of your application within 30 days of submitting.
We receive hundreds of applications for Stage Too every year. Our lineup is posted on the website by June 15th, but we do not personally write back to all applicants. We thank you for submitting and invite you to submit again next year, the process is competitive as we have 10 slots per year to grant, meaning that less than 5% of applicants are chosen.
Our event is rain or shine, the artists will be there to perform. We do not give refunds for weather, and we encourage you to come and enjoy the event! We have lots of tents.
We do give refunds if the artist also gives us a refund, an example would be the year 2020. Or some sort of natural disaster, act of terrorism, etc.
We will give you a refund for other reasons (medical, job, etc). but we do ask that you do everything yu can to first simply transfer the ticket to a friend, all you need to do is send them the barcode.
We would highly prefer that you ask for refunds more than two weeks ahead of the event. Please be considerate of our event--we are a mostly volunteer based organization, in a rural location, with a fantastic lineup of artists we have hired to entertain you! We appreciate your support.
We use this question on the festival ticket buyer page to track how many campsites we can expect to be filled at any given time. We will use this data to sell out if it looks like we have the number of people requesting space that we estimate that we have available. If you have purchased a ticket before we sell out, even if you won't be arriving to Saturday, you can expect that we have sold out prior to every single space being filled on the grounds because we know you have bought a ticket and are planning to camp.
That said--we do not reserve or hold individual campsites or certain amounts of space. If you arrive on Saturday please expect that you will have limited space available to you for your tent, and that you will not be able to camp alongside your tent.
Just show up day of and show your drivers license or other ID or mail at the gate! FREE tickets are for residents of:
Hiram, Cornish, Steep Falls, Porter, Parsonsfiled, Baldwin, Brownfield, Standish.