User:Mattweiss18/sandbox/Gentlemen of the Road

Gentlemen of the Road (GOTR) is a global series of events in small cities and towns around the world. Started by the British folk rock band Mumford & Sons in 2012, Gentlemen of the Road Stopovers' combine the intimacy of a community celebration with the excitement of a world-class music festival. GOTR spends months selecting cities and towns, creating venues, building the lineups, and planning the aftershows to ensure that each event is unique to each location. In addition to Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Willy Mason, and Vampire Weekend have all performed at GOTR Stopovers.

GOTR has hosted music festivals in various cities such as Troy, OH, St. Augustine, FL, Guthrie, OK, and Portland, ME. In addition to creating their own mini-festivals, GOTR hosted its own stage at the 2014 Glastonbury Festival on June 25th-29th. GOTR is expected to announce 2015 festival dates in the coming months.

2012
2012 was Gentlemen of the Road's first year in operation. Founded by Mumford & Sons, GOTR was created to bring a mini-festival to small towns around the world. According to the band:

"“The Gentlemen of the Road Stopover is based loosely upon our favorite festivals like Colorado’s Telluride Bluegrass and Scotland’s Loopallu Festivals... We want to stop off in towns not usually heavily toured by bands, and celebrate the people, food and music that inhabit them. We’re keen to promote the town’s local businesses, and we’ll be using the local bars and venues for aftershow parties, whilst working closely with the local people to get everyone involved in making these shows spectacular.""

Mumford & Sons headlined each show during the 2012 GOTR Stopovers. Throughout these Stopovers, attendees were able to hear a preview of songs from the Grammy award winning album Babel for the first time. Other performances during the 2012 GOTR Stopovers included St. Vincent, Dawes, The Vaccines, Willy Mason, The Maccabees, The Dropkick Murphys, Apache Relay, Simone Felice, Haim, JEFF The Brotherhood, The Very Best, Justin Townes Earl, Gogol Bordello, Abigail Washburn, Zulu Winter, Nathaniel Rateliff, The Correspondents, and Michael Kiwanuka.

2013
The 2013 edition of Gentlemen of the Road picked up right where it left off in 2012. As they did in 2012, Mumford & Sons continued to headline all of the 2013 Stopovers, with help from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Vampire Weekend. Additional performances included British Sea Power, White Denim, Youth Lagoon, The Very Best Sound System, The Vaccines, The Mystery Jets, Jonny Flynn and the Sussex Wit, Deap Valley, Bear's Den, Dan Mangan, Phosphorescent, Willy Mason, Yacht Club DJs, Old Crow Medicine Show, Hey Rosetta!, The Walkmen, Justin Townes Earle, Half Moon Run, Rubblebucket, Those Darlins, Alabama Shakes, Haim, and Thao & The Get Down Stay Down.

The 2013 Stopovers proved to be even more successful than the previous years events. Troy, Ohio, a city with a population of 10,000, became home to over 40,000 people from across the globe. In addition to bringing in tourists, the GOTR festival created a $20 million economic impact to this city.

As well as having an economic impact on these cities, GOTR has been praised for its charitable activities throughout their 2013 Stopovers. During its stopover in Bristol, VA/TN, $1 of every ticket sold benefited The Birthplace of Country Music Cultural Heritage Center building project. In November 2013, Gentleman of the Road's Guthrie Event was selected as the 2013 Recycling & Composting Event of the Year in Oklahoma. The Gentlemen of the Road composting program composted over 30,000 music-goers post-consumer food waste and paper products, creating to over 25 yards of fertile soil. This event resulted in diverting 24 tons of waste from the Guthrie landfill.

2014
Due to Mumford & Sons' hiatus, there were no Gentlemen of the Road Stopovers during 2014. However, GOTR hosted its own stage at the 2014 Glastonbury Festival on June 25th-29th 2014. Those lucky enough to be in attendance were surprised with a guest appearance by Mumford & Sons when the joint Haim on stage during their June 28th performance.

2015
Although 2014 did not see any Gentlemen of the Road Stopovers, GOTR is expected to pick up where it left off in 2013. 2015 stopovers are expected to be confirmed in the coming months.