Firefly Music Festival

2014 Firefly Kick-Off Press Conference

Friday, June 20 2:30pm EST

Media Compound, Firefly Music Festival

Quotes from Firefly Music Festival Greg Bostrom and DE Governor Jack Markell

Greg Bostrom, Firefly Music Festival Director:

“Firefly actually kicked off on Wednesday when we started loading in all the campers. I’m happy to say here on Friday that we are looking the camping load-in as a successful operation. [As of 2:30pm on Friday] We’ve already loaded in over 93% of our campers.”
“There are more than 50,000 campers on the grounds, and yesterday we had an estimated 60,000 attendees. It was a great success adding the fourth day. We are really pleased.”
“We are expecting 80,000 people to be here over the course of the weekend starting today. That’s up from 30,000 the first year and 65,000 last year. We’re excited, and we believe that Firefly is officially in the big leagues, and certainly I think some of the national attention we’ve got so far would indicate that as well.”
“The Woodlands got a little makeover this year. We are very excited that the Main Stage has moved to its permanent home that can accommodate the 80,000 people. We’re excited to have what we think is one of the best main stage venues in the whole country.”
“The theme of 2014 is and has been bigger is better. [….] We’ve expanded the site generally, and the third party presence. I think the site will speak for itself once you get out there.”
“We are very excited and proud to once again be partnering with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Red Frog Events has a national partnership with St. Jude. Firefly alone has raised over $75,000 for the cause and we expect that to grow significantly this year so we encourage you to check out what they’re doing on-site.”
“Thanks to Dover International Speedway, our partner from day one when we were a bunch of crazy kids from Chicago with the idea of putting on a music festival. Thanks for giving us the time of day.”
“We are going to be back next year. Firefly 2015 is going to be June 18-21^st, and you can start buying tickets on Wednesday. $199 pre-sale price on sale Wednesday.”

Governor Jack Markell, Delaware Governor:

“We are very excited. This is certainly a highlight in Delaware the last three years, and we are really excited it’s coming back next year.”
“This really is an incredible partnership across our state agencies.”
“From a tourism standpoint, this is unbelievable. Last year, of the 65,000 people who came, two-thirds of them had never been to Delaware before.”
“The economic impact last year was $12 million. This is huge for our tourism industry, which is a $2.2 billion industry in Delaware.”
“Local workers last year put in over 157,000 hours. That’s equivalent to 76 full time jobs.”
“I especially want to thank Secretary Bhatt and all the people at the Department of Transportation. We learn a lot every year and we certainly learned a lot last year from some of the traffic issues. The partnership between DELDOT and Red Frog is really strong. They started thinking about what we could do differently this year, last year.”
“Firefly has also donated more than 500 meals to the Dover Interfaith Mission Shelter and they’ve done a great job in terms of their green efforts. They have an incredible focus on recycling as well.”
“This company, Red Frog, really is an unbelievable company.”
“This is one of the biggest, most important music festivals in the country. We are absolutely in the top tier. It only stays that way if Delawareans continue to support it, as I’m sure we will.”
“It’s very exciting to have everybody here. This is going to be an awesome, awesome few days.”

2014 Firefly Kick-Off Press Conference Quotes