Asbury Park’s Sea.Hear.Now Nominated For “Best Music Festival”

Local music fans might be proud of the fact that a local music festival has been nominated for a cool award.  Asbury Park's Sea Hear Now has been nominated for Best Music Festival by the panel of judges at the national newspaper USA Today, owned by the Gannet company, which also owns the Asbury Park Press.  According to USA Today, their "panel of music festival aficionados has hand-picked 20 essential festivals from coast to coast where music fans can enjoy several artists (and even genres) in one place."

S.H.N was created by local shutter bug Danny Clinch and his surfer pal Tim Donnelly and produced by mega-corporation C3 in 2018.  Sea.Hear.Now has hosted an pretty eclectic list of rock musicians on the Asbury Park beach and boardwalk.  All the artists have been in the rock zone, many with deep roots in the rock/surf vibe.  Surfing vibe is a big part of the festival as local and national athletes come to compete in the early fall waves.  In fact a few of the musicians have been known to paddle out for a wave before their set.

Previous years headliners of this festival include Pearl Jam, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Incubus, Dave Matthews.  Pretty cool, right?

While the artists are nothing to shake a stick at, many of the people in attendance at the festival in 2023 came away wondering why they couldn't hear them perform.  Production issues and over crowding were major complaints in 2023.  Some people think that sound engineers might not have had enough power to produce the show.  More likely last year's sound problem was caused by environmental issues.  Believe it or not, sometimes a strong breeze can change the way that sound waves travel through the air.  It's possible that people in the audience who reported awful sound at last year's festival were caught in some kind of wind situation.  But, that's not been confirmed.

Voting in USA Today's Best Music Festival is open until Monday, March 18th at noon.  The local festival is up against some pretty stiff competition.  Other American festivals that have been nominated include Napa Valley's "Bottlerock", "Austin City Limits" in Texas, "Lollapalooza" and "Bonnaroo" in Tennessee.  One thing to note about SHN is that the local community has risen up to embrace the event.  Tickets sell like crazy even before the artists have been announced.  Social media feeds are stacked with posts from the event. There's huge local support which gives the local festival a real shot at getting this award.  Get out there and vote!