{"id":2448078,"date":"2019-08-28T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=311848"},"modified":"2019-08-28T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T13:00:00","slug":"jas-labor-day-experience-features-strong-snowmass-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/jas-labor-day-experience-features-strong-snowmass-ties\/","title":{"rendered":"JAS Labor Day Experience features strong Snowmass ties"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"swift-gallery p402_hide\" readability=\"6.5727699530516\">\n<ul id=\"imageGallery-311848-668\" class=\"gallery list-unstyled\">\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/jas-svs-082819-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/jas-svs-082819-1.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Maddie Vincent\/Snowmass Sun | JAS Labor Day Experience tents were being set up on the Snowmass Town Park softball fields on Aug. 26. This year's three-day music festival kicks off Friday, Aug. 30.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-1\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"9\">\n<p><strong>JAS Labor Day Experience tents were being set up on the Snowmass Town Park softball fields on Aug. 26. This year&#8217;s three-day music festival kicks off Friday, Aug. 30.<\/strong><br \/>Maddie Vincent\/Snowmass Sun<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/jas-svs-082819-1.jpg\" alt=\"JAS Labor Day Experience tents were being set up on the Snowmass Town Park softball fields on Aug. 26. This year's three-day music festival kicks off Friday, Aug. 30.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/jas-svs-082819-1-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/jas-svs-082819-1-1.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Maddie Vincent\/Snowmass Sun | Phil McKeague, a Snowmass local, stands in front of a bar tent set up for the JAS Labor Day Experience music festival. McKeague has helped put on the annual event for 24 years.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"0\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"11\">\n<p><strong>Phil McKeague, a Snowmass local, stands in front of a bar tent set up for the JAS Labor Day Experience music festival. McKeague has helped put on the annual event for 24 years.<\/strong><br \/>Maddie Vincent\/Snowmass Sun<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/08\/jas-svs-082819-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"Phil McKeague, a Snowmass local, stands in front of a bar tent set up for the JAS Labor Day Experience music festival. McKeague has helped put on the annual event for 24 years.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"caption-toggle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/snowmass\/jas-labor-day-experience-features-strong-snowmass-ties\/#\" class=\"show-captions\">Show Captions<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/snowmass\/jas-labor-day-experience-features-strong-snowmass-ties\/#\" class=\"hide-captions\">Hide Captions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText DropCap\">Snowmass Town Park was bustling Aug. 26 with people preparing for the annual Jazz Aspen Snowmass, or JAS Labor Day Experience music festival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Tents popped up on the softball fields and a handful of workers rested in hammocks beneath the nearly finished main stage, set to host bands including Weezer, Portugal. The Man, John Mayer and Sting over the holiday weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">For 24 years, Snowmass Town Park has hosted the three-day Labor Day weekend music festival, bringing in people from all over the state and the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">And for 24 years, local Phil McKeague, better known as \u201cPhil-Bob,\u201d has been working every one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIt started small but has grown incrementally,\u201d McKeague said of JAS Labor Day Experience. \u201cBut I\u2019m still the same old guy, just with bigger numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">McKeague rattled off some of these numbers without hesitation. Over the past two decades heading the festival\u2019s food and beverage operations, McKeague said he\u2019s gone from 15 bartenders to 74; 175 bags of ice to over 2,000; and ordered 1,200 cases of beer for this year\u2019s festival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">But outside of its incremental growth, the festival set-up and location has remained virtually unchanged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Over Labor Day Weekend, there will be some heightened crowd control efforts, including opening the festival village area an hour early each day for live music and food and drink specials, and hosting another silent disco Saturday night to help alleviate outgoing traffic after the headlining shows.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">As for safety, Pitkin County Dispatch Center will notify people of any festival specific public safety concerns or hazards through its text notification system again, but hopes to get more subscribers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The center used the system last year during JAS Labor Day and X Games, according to Pitkin County Dispatch Center Director Brett Loeb, who urged locals and visitors to text JASAspen to 888777 to sign up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Over the past 24 years, JAS Labor Day Experience has become a Snowmass staple and end of the summer celebration for the whole Roaring Fork Valley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">When asked why Snowmass has been the best fit for the JAS Labor Day Experience over the years, Jazz Aspen Snowmass founder and president Jim Horowitz said it comes down to the relationships and traditions that have been created.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThere are people who have never missed a festival \u2026 the Snowmass locals have a different relationship with it than people from Aspen because it\u2019s right in their front yard,\u201d Horowitz said. \u201cIt\u2019s more personal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Horowitz said McKeague is one of the Snowmass locals who have a strong personal relationship with JAS Labor Day Experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">On a recent morning just a few days before the JAS Labor Day festival, McKeague sat beneath one of the newly erected white tents with a stack of papers in front of him as he explained the logistics of making sure over 10,000 people are adequately watered and fed for three days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">But outside of ensuring he provides great customer service, McKeague said he works hard every year to take care of his employees, too. Many of the bartenders have worked the Labor Day festival nearly as long as McKeague has, helping create a unique community of their own.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cSome of these people I\u2019ve grown up with, played softball with and worked with since my conference center days,\u201d McKeague said, referring to when he managed the old Silvertree Hotel conference center. \u201cI don\u2019t have any kids, but by Friday I\u2019ll have 70.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">McKeague went on to say he couldn\u2019t \u201cwin,\u201d or help put on a successful festival each year without the help of his team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI get my roster and every day I set the best team out I can and always win,\u201d McKeague said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Moving forward, McKeague hopes to transition into having more of a consulting role with the festival. But looking back, he said there\u2019s one festival weekend that sticks out above the rest: 1999.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">That\u2019s the year McKeague worked the festival Friday, married his wife, Amber, at the top of Elk Camp on Saturday and celebrated back at the festival beneath a fully catered tent with over 200 local guests. He laughed as he recalled going back to work Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cZiggy Marley and Joe Walsh played my wedding reception,\u201d McKeague said. \u201cTo be married at the top of Elk Camp and then celebrate at the festival, I can\u2019t imagine doing anything better. \u2026 It was the best day of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Since his wedding day, McKeague said he and his wife celebrate their Sept. 4 anniversary when it falls during the festival weekend with a champagne toast after the night\u2019s concerts are over.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">This year his wedding anniversary doesn\u2019t happen during the festival, but McKeague is still excited to be a part of it, planning to pump his team up for the challenge and mark another win in his book, as he said he\u2019s always done.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cMy base and my strength all comes from my staff,\u201d McKeague said. \u201cThe sense of accomplishment you feel on Sunday night is warming, if you will. \u2026 I look out and say \u2018God, we made it happen again somehow.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/snowmass\/jas-labor-day-experience-features-strong-snowmass-ties\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JAS Labor Day Experience tents were being set up on the Snowmass Town Park softball fields on Aug. 26. This year&#8217;s three-day music festival kicks off Friday, Aug. 30.Maddie Vincent\/Snowmass Sun Phil McKeague, a Snowmass local, stands in front of a bar tent set up for the JAS Labor Day Experience music festival. McKeague has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2448078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 19:47:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}