Indiana’s Granfalloon festival features a roadtrip-worthy KC lineup
Waxahatchee. // photo by Molly Matalon
Since 2017, Bloomington, Indiana, has played host to the Granfalloon, an arts festival of sorts celebrating creativity in the spirit of famous writer (and Hoosier) Kurt Vonnegut. The annual event seeks to bring together “musicians, artists, thinkers, and good people from all walks of life for a celebration of art, ideas, and community.”
While most arts festivals take part across a long weekend, Granfalloon occurs “at venues across the IU Bloomington campus and throughout the city,” and takes place over the course of several months. While part of this year’s Granfalloon happened back in April, with appearances by comedians Dwight Simmons and Caleb Hearon, the biggest part of the event kicks off this weekend on Saturday, June 20, when indie musician Waxahatchee and special guest Kathleen Edwards perform in Bloomington’s Switchyard Park. Additional shows take place on Saturday, July 18, with headliners Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and soul revivalists Durand Jones & The Indications on Saturday, August 29.
It’s been a lengthy journey from what the Granfalloon began as, says Edward Dallis-Comentale, Assistant Vice President for Arts and Humanities at the University of Indiana and the man who helped create it. He’s always been really interested in art and literature that tries to change the world, as well as fans and fan culture, explains Dallis-Comentale
“About 10 years ago, the university asked me to start building up arts and humanities and creating culture around arts and humanities on campus,” the professor says. “We started running exhibits, conferences, arts festivals, but we really wanted something for the summer to keep people in Bloomington, over the summer months.”
Dallis-Comentale wanted something that celebrated the local and the arts and, as Kurt Vonnegut was a Hoosier born and bred in Indianapolis, he became the muse for the festival when it all came together in 2017. The first Grandfalloon was held in the parking lot at Upland Brewery, with a few hundred attendees there to see headliner Father John Misty, with a solo Waxahatchee as the opener.
“We’ve just seen it grow in leaps and bounds from there,” states the organizer. After Covid, Granfalloon moved to downtown Bloomington, and the event would shut down Kirkwood Avenue, the main street of the city, eventually resulting in 8000 people seeing the Flaming Lips in June of 2023.
This year, however, marks a few changes. First, the Granfalloon will move from Kirkwood Avenue to the city’s Switchyard Park. Additionally, rather than the “one glorious weekend” it’s been in the past, it’s been broken up into three different months, and as you might’ve noticed, it’s very heavy on Kansas City acts. In addition to the prior appearance by comedian Hearon and this weekend’s Waxahatchee performance, Kevin Morby will perform at the end of the summer when Granfalloon partners with local label Secretly Canadian as part of their 30th anniversary celebrations, the last weekend in August.
“Everyone here–the people I work with–we’re all indie rock fans, for sure,” says Dallis-Comentale of how they pick Granfalloon’s acts. “And we really wanna boost the independent artist spirit of Bloomington. That’s really important for us.”
As the event founder continues on to explain, it all goes back to something Kurt Vonnegut wrote in a letter to New York’s Xavier High School students back in 2006: “Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”
Practicing an art is something that everyone has to do, Dallis-Comentale says.
“He’s an untrained writer and he really believed in untrained artists with an independent spirit,” he continues. “And so we kinda hit that terrain. We really like that terrain, outside of the mainstream, outside of the commercial machinery of Live Nation and all that, and we just try to pick artists that reflect that spirit.”
While the Granfalloon is definitely a music festival, it’s also a festival of ideas and of arts and humanities, but at its heart, says Dallis-Comentale, it really celebrates local craft. In addition to past partnerships with the IU Writers Conference, Granfalloon also partners with the Handmade Market, one of the Midwest’s largest handmade markets.
“We’ve got our own little side nest of nurturing artists, young artists, young musicians, young writers through this festival, and we try to be inspiring in that way,” he says.
As much as it the Granfalloon is produced for the people of Bloomington, the organizers do find that they have folks coming in from out of town for it as it’s grown over the years, and every year there’s a small international contingent.
“We’ve had people from Mexico City, from Dublin, from Berlin, Amsterdam,” Dallis-Comentale offers, explaining that “people who love Vonnegut who will come out for any Vonnegut-themed experience.”
And then there are people who follow the bands. Flaming Lips brought a whole caravan of touring fans when they showed up in 2023, he says, and when the Granfalloon brings in these national acts, they always have room in the program for local performers, as well. For example, when Waxahatchee plays this weekend, there will also be a showcase from Bloomington’s Girls Rock camp.
“It’s so great to have local kids, local teens, local performers on the same stage with these big names,” enthuses Dallis-Comentale. “It means a lot here, for sure.”
While past Granfalloon’s have been free or low-cost, this year’s shows will be ticketed, and that’s because paying for such an event has increasingly become a challenge in the world of arts and arts programming.
“Part of the reason why we’re switching to the park and making it ticketed is that we’re trying to build a sustainable model where we have enough in our coffers that we can build up the park’s facilities for more community events, but also get to a point where we can keep it mostly free,” the organizer says. “That’s always a challenge.”
Regardless of the challenges inherent in producing a festival, the end result is always something which makes it worthwhile, Dallis-Comentale says, and it ties into the theme of this year’s Granfalloon, which is “Lonesome No More,” taken from Vonnegut’s novel Slapstick.
“In the book, there’s a president,” explains the festival founder. “His campaign slogan was ‘Lonesome No More.’ He was gonna fight the loneliness epidemic in America by giving everyone a new last name and creating new extended families for everyone.”
If ever there was a cure for loneliness, it’s hanging out in a park with thousands of other music fans there to see an artist whom you love, and Dallis-Comentale notes that the responses from young locals are what really bring it all home.
“When a teenager says at the festival, ‘I can’t believe this is happening in my town,’ that’s the greatest response you can get from a kid,’” he concludes. “’I can’t believe this is happening here.’”
Bloomington’s Granfalloon kicks off this Saturday, June 20, in Switchyard Park with a headlining set from Waxahatchee. Details on that show here.
