Hoopla in the Hills 2014 found a new home near Athens, Ohio for this year, a larger venue close to Ohio University. The festival also landed a couple weeks earlier on the calendar, the last weekend in March. Although rumored to go out like a lamb, notoriously fickle Ohio weather proved that sometimes that lamb might be an angry big horn with something to prove.

The Thursday and Friday festivities enjoyed decent weather, and local favorites like John Mullins, Rumpke Mountain Boys, Jahman Brahman and Papadosio mashed up with touring acts David Gans, Larry Keel & Nature Bridge, and fest favorite Keller Williams—who endeared the crowd with his solo acoustic stylings and layered sampling. Keller’s rendition of St. Stephen was particularly well received. Saturday, however, saw Mother Nature pour three inches of rain on the site, and as the mud deepened, so did the challenges. Vehicles bogged down, pools of standing water collected even in the tented stage sites, and the crowd thinned. While quality lighting and sound production were not impacted by the weather, many attendees sought warmth and comfort elsewhere as they headed out early. Only the strange remained—and the collective that endured shared, grooved, and bonded to some fine performances from West Virginia’s The Recipe, the funky club grooves of Cosby Sweater, EOTO, and another psychedelic set from Papadosio, among many others—over 50 acts in all played at Hoopla for 2014.

As the sun rose on Sunday, people scrambled to free vehicles and muster dry clothing to the live soundtrack provided by the last bands of the weekend, including Flatland Harmony Experiment, the Paranormals, and the hard-hitting regional favorites, the Spikedrivers.

Hoopla in the Hills is a delightful festival that combines artisan creativity, hoop artistry, and a vast array of local and national acts across a spectrum of styles, all gathered in the name of fun, higher consciousness, and the joy of a diverse collective seeking what is to be sought. A deluge and a few early Spring flurries managed to present challenges that, in the end, created opportunity for the formation of new friendships and lasting memories as strangers helping strangers found delight in the experience and kicked off festival season in the Midwest with the promise that warmer days would soon come.