by Mike Lisching
The Mill Valley Music Festival, launched in 2022 by the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with Noise Pop Industries, the festival was born out of a desire to reconnect the community after the isolation of the pandemic. Now entering its fourth year, the Mill Valley Music Festival has quickly become a beloved annual tradition, celebrating the vibrant spirit and creativity of Marin County.
The inaugural event welcomed thousands to Friends Field behind the Mill Valley Community Center for a one-day celebration of live music, local food, and neighborhood spirit. Following the overwhelming enthusiasm from attendees and residents alike, the festival expanded to a two-day format in 2023 and has continued to grow ever since.
Each year, the festival features a diverse lineup of nationally recognized artists and local favorites, spanning genres from indie rock to folk, funk, and beyond. In addition to world-class performances, the event showcases artisanal vendors, craft beverages, family-friendly programming, and a deep commitment to sustainability.
With the 2025 edition, the Mill Valley Music Festival cements its place as a signature event in the Bay Area music and cultural calendar — one that reflects the values, creativity, and heart of the Mill Valley community.
Last week I had the opportunity to connect with Jim Welte, Festival co-founder and Mill Valley Chamber CEO, to see the festival through his eyes. It’s been months of planning, and they are now in the home stretch. Things are both exciting and a bit frantic in a moment of “all hands on deck” leading up to the festival.
Everyone’s doing everything again. We all feel compelled to make it the best thing it can be.
A simple statement, but resonant in a Bay Area where “startup mentality” seems to permeate everything. Music is at the core of Mill Valley, so “everyone doing everything” begins with the music, and finding the right bands is paramount.
… if you book acts that do one of two things. They either are bands that you already know, and therefore you are drawn to and want to go see them or the other half of the slice …. is that we work really hard to find bands that people haven’t heard of, and will leave with their mouth open.
This year, the festival will draw from Petaluma, Berkeley, San Francisco, and even farther south. Jim continues on what the team thinks makes a good MVMF band.
Almost every year, we’ve had a band, if not more than one band, that is super high energy… a band that is gonna get everybody dancing for a long time. That suits the vibe of the town.
…having a guitar God like Gary Clark, having Nile Rogers, as someone who very much fits that “Remain in Light” (a 2023 artist) sort of vibe, where you have older gentlemen, who have been around a long time, who are surrounded by incredibly young, vibrant talent. So we’ve landed on that combination. And it’s been a big success every year…. we are finding bands that find that balance between the old timers that everybody loves and the young folks that get everybody moving.
Now in its 4th year, it’s still a strong collaboration with the “broad shoulders” of the Noise Pop team and the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce.
You know we are all in meetings all day, every day, for months, to make this happen. We, as a chamber, have become really good at this as well. But this doesn’t happen without the key core group of Noise Pop staff who are thinking about this the day after we have the last event.
And as the festival continues to grow, the team wants to grow in a right-sized way, while maintaining the core values of Mill Valley and the festival. That begins with a festival that puts families and kids first. (attractions)
It’s a very kid-centric event, an almost comically kid-centric event. In year one, and pretty much every year since, I really don’t see my kid at all, unless she needs to get some additional pizza money. That is the framework for most parents on-site. It is a gigantic, beautiful, bucolic field, and it’s also extremely secure and safe. It works really well and gives people a sense of having a day off without actually doing anything to make it happen. You don’t need to bring your babysitter because your kids are here.
You can also see the importance of family and legacy in the choice to partner with Sweetwater Music Hall.
Live music, and music in general is deeply embedded into this town. Going back long before you and I were born. The institutions that have sort of made that happen remain. Sweetwater Music Hall has been around for decades in different iterations over time, in different venues over time. They’ve stood the test of time, and they they are a huge part of our event. We make them the second stage for our event every single year. Not just because they’re great, and they put on great music, but also because they are the the live music institution that we’ve all been built on for decades.
…Historically, many of the people who created institutions like the Sweetwater Music Hall and others. Those folks are still alive, still love to share their thoughts about what went on 20, 30, 40 years ago, which is awesome. They’ve they’ve they’ve laid the tracks, and all we need to do is keep following them. Tweak it, as we may change it in small ways and good ways.
The festival continues to raise the profile of Mill Valley and its businesses. Each year, providing a place for local vendors and restaurants to showcase, as well as offering opportunities for locals to volunteer at the event. Every detail is geared toward including as much of the Mill Valley Community as possible.
The biggest things we focus on every year is that every single sponsorship dollar that comes in gets immediately turned into scholarship tickets for people who would not be able to attend the event otherwise. And so for us, that ends up being upwards of 5 or 6 hundred people who, may not have been able to attend on their own… We need sponsorships to exist, and we immediately turn them into scholarship dollars for people who, need the opportunity, and would love to have it.
Those sponsorship dollars come from the Mill Valley community.
Lots of mom and pop boutiques, restaurants, and arts organizations. All those folks. They dive into the pool with us, and they make it work.
Toward the end of our conversation, Jim and I chatted about moments that immediately brought a smile to his face.
In year one, and every year since then, me and a handful of others on the Noise Pop team, and within my family… we just find some time to get together, removed from the crowd for a moment… Having that brain digestion moment where you’re like… This is why we do it. This is why we bring ourselves to tears in making this thing the best version it can be.
That says a lot about the heart and dedication of the team at the core of this event and why it has been so successful. That team wants you to leave full up with joy.
I would say, keep the joy that you have felt in this moment and keep it for as long as you can… So I think finding and maintaining that joy as often as you can, is incumbent on all of us.
The Festival less than a week away, I am primed to soak in all the joy I can, and give it back to the artists and patrons with some wild cheering and dancing! Come join me by getting your tickets now at Mill Valley Music Festival.
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