Sunshine Get Down Founder Talks Festival’s Growth

In the spring of 2023, some Florida musicians gathered for a last-minute weekend festival in the woods outside of Brooksville, a small town halfway between Tampa and Orlando. Hosted by Florida Sand Music Ranch, formerly Sertoma Youth Ranch, the first annual Sunshine Get Down was born. The Headliners consisted of a Grateful Dead cover band, a Talking Heads cover band, and another Grateful Dead cover band. It was a lineup one could see walking down St. Pete’s Central Avenue on any given Saturday, but sparked something larger to come.

The following year, Sunshine doubled down, adding a fall festival called Sunshine Hootenanny. 2024’s Hootenanny—Sunshine’s third event in two years—was their biggest hit to date, more than doubling the attendance of their first festival. The fall event featured five-time-Bonnaroo-performers, moe., as the headliner, bringing another tier of credibility and exposure to the production.

One month after Hootenanny, the lineup for the 3rd annual Sunshine Get Down was announced. This April 10-12, Baltimore funk jesters, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, will headline the festival alongside Andy Frasco & the U.N. and Big Something. I got in touch with Turner Moore, the owner and promoter of Sunshine Music Fests, to talk about the creation of the festival and its growth over the first few years. Knowing little more than the name of the man behind the Get Down, I started by asking about his background in relation to live music.

Turner: Well, I've been seeing concerts for almost 40 years. I'm a big deadhead. I started seeing them in the mid ‘80s, and some Grateful Dead spin-offs, hundreds and hundreds of times. And I've been in various bands for almost 25 years, and I've got some understanding of production and sound engineering and things like that. So, putting the festival together, you know, I've got the perspective of an attendee. I've got the perspective of the sound crew and things like that. And I like live music, and I like creating positive group experiences.”

JC: The other name I’ve seen pop up when researching the festival is Jillian Grant. What is her role?

Turner: So, a good friend, our mutual friend, introduced us a couple years ago. Jillian has over 10 years’ experience running things, being a production manager, and she worked for Orange Blossom jamboree and other events. She handles a lot of details for us, like all the volunteers, all the RV campsite assignments. She handles artist hospitality. She introduced me to a great stage manager, so we've got a really professional production crew. And between the two of us, we've put together a good team.

JC: The Ranch changed names when it was acquired by the Will McLean foundation in late 2022. Did the newly repurposed venue inspire the initial spark, or did that come earlier?

Turner: Well, I had been trying to get into what used to be called the Sertoma Youth Ranch, for years. They were much busier in the past—Covid changed that a little bit. And when they changed hands, some of their events changed also. In addition to all the music stuff that they do, they used to do a lot more youth events, 4H, Boy Scouts, you know, things like that. So, I'd been knocking on the door for many years trying to get in and they were really at capacity. And then in January 2023, Orange Blossom Jamboree, which had run for 13 years, announced very abruptly that they were gonna shut down. And I happened to see that, and I was next on the list, and I called and was able to secure their dates.

JC: How soon was the concept of a second festival introduced?

Turner: After our last [Get Down], the Ranch said, you know, “Hey, we like working with you guys, we have another open date. Do you want a November date as well?” So, we jumped on that, and that became the Sunshine Hootenanny.

We had been wanting to go that direction, and it just worked out. For us, it's perfect, because they're six months apart, they're out of the summer, they’re pretty much out of hurricane season, and the weather is cooler and dryer and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, those dates align well for us.

JC: I’ve seen a lot of the bands from past and current lineups share the stage with each other in Ybor, St. Pete, and Dunedin. Did that supportive and collaborative music scene in the area help with the initial booking, or were there still hesitations about signing on to a first-year festival?

 Turner: Oh, no. No, the local bands were thrilled. And our first-year talent budget was 10 to 15% of where we are now. So, you know, we were able to pull off the first event. OBJ announced they were shutting down, like, January 20th or so, and I got my little team together, we decided we're gonna go ahead with it, and it took me 6 to 8 weeks to get event insurance. So, there was nothing I was gonna do until I was insured, 1—because the park requires it, and 2—you need insurance to do an event. So, we really didn't start working in earnest until almost mid-March. So, we put the whole first event together in about two months, and I was very happy with the lineup. We had about—I think we went through 510 wristbands for the first event. So, it was OK. It was modest. And in November we had about 1200 people, so we’re growing.

JC: What about the second Get Down? What did that look like?

Turner: With the second Get Down, we started to move toward slightly bigger bands. We had Melody trucks, probably one of our bigger bands, and Rainbow Full of Sound, which does some national touring. So, that was a little bigger, but we really jumped at the Hootenanny last fall. That was really when we got into the national scene, where we had two nights of moe. headlining, and that really put us on the map. And, you know, our other bands, Dogs in a Pile and Karina Rykman. So, we had three touring bands in November, and we’re obviously continuing that. Now, we have eight touring bands and a national DJ, who's actually on Phish radio on SiriusXM. He's gonna do a DJ set, but then he's also running one of our silent discos. And we've got a DJ from Denver who's coming out, so we have, more or less, 10 national artists and two youth bands, and then about 10 regional bands.

JC: So, in November, landing moe. and those other national touring bands opened the doors for more to come. But was there an initial turning point that allowed access to that first group of larger national acts?

Turner: Well, I reached out to a friend of mine who I went college with, is a great musician, and runs in music festival New Jersey. And I asked him if he had any recommendations for an experienced concert promoter to help us and consult. And one of the things that we wanted to do is bring in bands that were up-and-coming. So, obviously moe.’s been around for a long time, but Dogs in a Pile and Karina are a little bit more on the up-and-coming side, as are a lot of the bands that we've got now, in Frasco and Big Something and so forth. So, we're trying to grab bands that are just kind of breaking on the scene and getting popular. And we have four great bands booked for November. I can't tell you who those are yet. But the same kind of theme, where they're up-and-coming, they're breaking, and they've got big summer tours lined up. And we were able to lock in those dates before they blow up on their summer tours.

JC: Well, I’ll have to keep an eye out for that announcement.

Turner: Probably mid-late May. Tickets will go on sale on the Hootenanny app at the Get Down- blind. And then we’ll publish those as soon as we can. The national touring bands are lined up, some of the regional bands are lined up, but we would prefer not to dribble things out. We had to embargo Frasco until December 27th or something, because he was playing at Jannus. And we were within the radius clause, so we had to wait on him. But it’s not our intention to dribble things out, we want it all out there so people can see the whole picture and make their decision.

JC: You mentioned trying to target up-and-coming bands, but what about sound? I noticed this year has a lot of funky, a lot of tropical sounds on the lineup. Do you book with an overall sound in mind, or does that just kind of form on its own?

Turner: We want a mix, you know? We're jam-band-centric, but we want some reggae, we want a little funk, we want some bluegrass, we want some jazz. So, all that stuff I think fits within the overall big picture of what our audience likes. Our audience listens to Billy strings, and Phish, and Goose, and moe., and Grateful Dead, and Allman Brothers, and Pink Floyd, and things like that. You know, pretty much all good music and I describe it as the world's best mixtape. We wanna hit all the bases.

JC: I drove up to check out the park yesterday, and when I was looking at the map of the festival, I did notice the two stages seemed right by each other- obviously, with alternating set schedules. But are there any plans to transition to a larger venue if the festival continues growing at this rate?

Turner: You know, the total capacity of the park is 2,500. We had 1200 at our last event. We hope to beat that this time, so we have a ways to go until we're really at total capacity. And I like the camping aspect. I like the three-day camping format. I could be booking shows at Jannus, or some other places, but that's one night, it's a one-off. To me, it's not as satisfying. So, for the time being, we’re at the Music Ranch. We love them, they're happy with us, and it's a good partnership.

JC: Are there any unforgettable moments of the last two years, or the Hootenanny, that come to mind for you?

Turner: Well, one thing that really stood out for me was Melody Trucks, last May. They played a song by Traffic, called “Medicated Goo”. I went to college in Virginia, and there was a band from Virginia Beach called Indecision, and they used to play that song. So, when they started playing that, I remember I was busy, I was doing a bunch of different things, and then I stopped- for five minutes. I recorded it, and I just was blown away, because they tore it up.

I mean, it sounded amazing. And it really struck me, because, hearing that song, which I probably hadn't heard since like, 1991/1992 live, it really struck me. And it's really kind of the reason why I’m in this whole thing. Because, like I said, I started going to shows in the mid ‘80s, and I've had so many good times all over the US, and I'm happy to be able to provide that experience for other people, so that really stood out.

JC: That seems like a really cool full-circle moment. On the journey there, what's been either the greatest challenge, or an unexpected challenge, in the development of the Sunshine Music Festivals?

Turner: The biggest challenge is keeping the expenses down. There are so many expenses, between Artist riders, ground transportation, hotels, insurance, sound, lighting, back line, RVs for the crew, T-shirts, banners, advertising, graphic design. I mean, on, and on, and on, and on. The expenses really are significant, and it's hard. And there are not a lot of independent festivals, you know? A lot of festivals are owned by bigger entities, and they do a lot of them.

JC: You mentioned having some surprise headliners you're excited for in November, but what else can we expect in the future, as far as the growth of the Sunshine Get Down or addition of other events?

Turner: Right now, we're gonna stick with the two per year. A dream of mine is to do an event at one of the spring training stadiums that, you know, get used for 20 days out of the year and stand vacant for the rest of the time. A couple years ago, I was at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota, and I was talking to the general manager, and I asked, like, “Why aren't you doing other events? Why aren't you doing concerts here? You've got all the facilities, you have a ticket office, you've got bathrooms, you have concessions, you have parking, you have power, you have lighting. You have all of those things that are necessary to put on an event.” And his answer was, “Well, we're not in the music business.” So, you know, at some point it’d be nice to do that. 

Other little stuff, like, I'd like to do an astronomy night. The field at the ranch, down on the far side of the property, farthest from the gate, that's really a flood plain. And right now, it's still partially submerged from the hurricanes last summer. But it's been dry for 15 years until the summer, so maybe in the fall, if we don't have a tremendously wet summer, it'll be dry out there. We were gonna do mini-golf in November, but we couldn't, because of the water. So, you know, things like that- activities, mini-golf, astronomy. We added another yoga session for this event because they were full for the last one and people really enjoyed those. So, you know, just adding more value and things that are fun, and educational, or worthwhile like that.

The 2025 Sunshine Get Down will be held at Florida Sand Music Ranch in Brooksville, Florida, from April 10-12. Tickets are available at sunshinegetdown.com.