Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Poster, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA Oct 5-7 2017. Original Hand-Pulled Silkscreen Edition.

Hand-Signed in pencil by illustrator Gary Houston

Size: 18" x 26"

In Flawless, Mint Condition

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is an annual, free and non-commercial music festival held the first weekend of October in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Conceived and subsidized by San Francisco venture capitalist Warren Hellman, the festival has been held every year since 2001.

Various corporations have offered to sponsor the event over the years, but Hellman always turned them down, saying "I want to keep it entirely free and noncommercial." For some performers, the fact that the event is unsponsored is very important to its character. Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show said that part of what keeps the event focused on the music and the community is Warren's decision to ensure it is not "consumption driven" and the audience is not "bombarded with signage."

Originally Hellman intended only to invite bluegrass musicians. But soon artists from other genres were invited to the event, and in 2004 the word "Hardly" was added to reflect its expanded scope. The festival draws huge crowds, regularly estimated at 750,000, nearly equal in number to the entire population of San Francisco, over its three days.

It hosts the most and least famous, and is the event the San Francisco Chronicle called "Warren Hellman's gift to not only the City of San Francisco, but the world of music."

This is Gary Houston's second Hardly Strictly Bluegrass poster. Both should be available in my store.