Much has been made of the announcement that Moogfest, an electronic music festival held in Asheville the past few years, is relocating to Durham. By all accounts Moogfest brought a lot of energy to Asheville and featured an amazing lineup of musicians.
But Moog Music, the parent company of the festival, lost a whopping $1.5 million on the 2014 version of the festival. As local musician Andrew Fletcher wrote in response to the festival leaving, Moogfest was “spending money like a college kid with a credit card.” After the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners unanimously denied a $250,000 grant request for the 2016 festival, the writing was on the wall.