Ed Masley

The Republic | azcentral.com

Superfly, the co-creators of the iconic Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival and San Francisco's Outside Lands Music Festival, will launch the multi-format Lost Lake Festival at Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix the weekend of Oct. 20-22.

The three-day event will feature more than 40 artists ranging from "iconic to of-the-moment national talent," as well as regional and local acts performing on multiple stages across the 75-acre park.

Similar to Outside Lands

In Phoenix to announce the festival, Superfly co-founder Rick Farman said Outside Lands is "probably a little bit more an analogous thing" to what his company has planned for Phoenix.

"We were inspired by the energy and creative shift that is happening in the Phoenix metro area to create a festival experience that truly represents the Valley's culture, food, arts and music as well as the vibrant and outgoing lifestyle of the community," Farman says . "We've been working closely with our local partners and city leaders to develop this landmark event and are excited to be a part of such an impassioned and artistic scene."

Farman also said the park is "one of the best that we have ever seen" for this type of event.

'This place is really happening right now'

Phoenix has been on Farman's radar for at least two years.

"We have a bunch of friends that are here," he says. "And they were telling us, 'Hey, this place is really happening right now. There's a lot of energy going on and what you guys do would work really well here.' So it was just through a process of coming to visit, spending time in the city, meeting people, learning what was really going on here. And then we looked at the underlying opportunity. How big the city is. The type of population. The student population. All of those were factors on the business side."

Charlie Levy of Stateside Presents is involved with Superfly as a consultant on this venture.

"Charlie is as knowledgeable about the Phoenix music scene as anybody," Farman says. "But he's got a lot going on in his world, so he's playing more of a consulting role, advising us, keeping us in line, telling us, 'Hey, that's a bad idea. That's a good idea.' He's a music fan who understands tastes here but also understands tastes in general. So he's another person in the mix, saying, 'Hey, these artists will go well together,' or 'We need a little more of that to round out our lineup.' Those are the type of things where we really rely on somebody who has that perspective locally but also is as smart as anybody nationally to help advise us."

Phoenix Mayor Stanton says: 'It's time'

Mayor Greg Stanton, who spent this past Saturday making the rounds at Viva PHX and reported back to us on what he liked about it, is thrilled at the prospect.

"Look," he says, "it's time that Phoenix got a festival of this size and magnitude with tens and thousands of people every day for a three-day festival right in the heart of our city. It's not going to be easy to manage, but you know what? It's the right thing to do. We're going to bring people from all over the country who want to see the acts that are going to be announced in the next few weeks.

"People from all over the state and our local residents right in the heart of Phoenix. You see some of these iconic festivals, like Bonnaroo, like Outside Lands, like Coachella, now Phoenix is going to have ours. We have some great festivals already. Viva PHX, McDowell Mountain Music Festival, but this is beyond any of that. It's exponentially bigger than those, and I think Phoenix is ready to host an event like this. We've got the right population, the right energy, the right economy and the facilities.

Acts, tickets to be announced

Farman says within the next month, they'll announce the lineup and more details, including ticket information.

Asked to elaborate on what "iconic" would mean in this context, Farman says, "Someone who is recognizable at large. Our festivals have programmed the biggest of the biggest, but we need to build a base here and kind of get a good thing going, which we feel really confident we'll be able to do. And then we'll have the opportunity to bring much larger names in."

The first year, Farman says, will "probably be more diverse than most festivals" while at the same time "feeling a little bit within a certain zone." And that's because, again, "we've got to get a base going here. We've got to program in a way that gets a certain base crowd that we know will be likely to buy a multi-day festival ticket."

Why Lost Lake?

Farman says they came up with the name in part because Steele Indian School Park is something of an undervalued gem in Phoenix.

"This is an amazing park," he says. "And as we were going around the city, not that many people are familiar with it. It was surprising to us that we have this incredible jewel here and it doesn't seem that a lot of people know about it. And having the lake in the middle of it was an interesting thing for us to play off."

Stanton also calls the park a "hidden gem."

"It's huge," he says, "but people don't realize it. We're probably going to introduce this park to tens of thousands of people who didn't even know that it was here."

MORE: Pot of Gold music fest with Flogging Molly is this weekend | Local music picks for March | Arizona music festivals | Review: Viva PHX rocked downtown

'Our residents and visitors haven't seen anything like' Lost Lake

Stanton also said: "When it comes to delivering a world-class arts, culture and culinary festival experience, Superfly sets the bar. Phoenix has become a top destination for major events, but our residents and visitors haven't seen anything like the Lost Lake Festival yet. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Superfly to create this one-of-a-kind event in the heart of Phoenix."

Superfly brings more than 20 years of experience and expertise to the event. And they'll be working in collaboration with the city of Phoenix, Stateside Presents, Walter Productions, Starr Hill, Boogie and A Beautiful Perspective.

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Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495.Twitter.com/EdMasley.