The Sunnyside Music Festival provides free music, fun entertainment, local food, lots of beer, and kids activities to the greater Sunnyside neighborhood of Northwest Denver via an inclusive all-day music festival in Chaffee Park. Through community outreach, it supports musicians, artists, businesses, schools, and non-profits.
In 2000, the (then named) Sunnyside Bluegrass Festival began in the backyard of a neighborhood couple who wanted to have a free music festival for their friends and neighbors. It started with 2 bands, 2 kegs, 50 people and about 20 dogs.
The next year, a monsoon rolled off of the mountains and it was rainy and about 45 degrees all day, but the event grew in both attendance and beer consumption. The founders knew they were getting somewhere in 2002 when a couple of local politicians showed up to glad hand. The second stage, located in a neighbor¹s back yard, and actually on a back porch.
By 2004, the event was on the brink of moving into Chaffee Park, but the abundance of expensive permits and paperwork seemed daunting. Shortly after, the couple moved away, and sadly the festival was discontinued.
In 2007, local Sunnyside folks applied for two small grants to revive the festival. Together with a handful of friends they re-launched the event with the help of local musicians like Mollie O¹Brien. Now coming up on the 20th festival, The Sunnyside Music Festival has become a mainstay for the NW Denver Neighborhood, taking over Chaffee Park the Saturday after Labor Day each year.
Since 2016, we have raised enough money through the festival to distribute small grants to local nonprofits that are working to get our neighborhood kids playing music.
We hope to see you at this year's festival.
