Dancing On The Beach

The Outermost Roots & Blues Festival hosted 5,000 people over two days at Nauset Beach for bands, food, and a laid back vibe. Organizers said event ticket sales support activities at the town's Natural Resources department, while more than $1 million in incremental revenue from the event provided an economic boost in the shoulder season.

What is Outermost Roots & Blues Festival?


18 October 2024 - ORLEANS, MA - When Mike McNamara, co-founder of Outermost Roots & Blues Festival, summarizes the two-day festival, which took place 12 and 13 October this year, he points with his fingers in the air and says, “excitement, camaraderie and a financial gain to the town.” 

The festival is set on Nauset Beach in October before the temperature drops too low and while the fall is wearing its best makeup. Five years after its inception, McNamara wants Outermost festival to be a Cape Cod staple, something people mark in their calendar and return to year after year.

“People come down to the Cape to either visit grandparents, aunts, uncles, to vacation with their entire family and extended family,” says McNamara. “And we wanted to kind of create an event that was something for everybody.” There were street crayons and a green area for kids, but the most important factor in creating an event for all ages was the music.

McNamara and Garrett “G.Love” Dutton, lead singer in the band G. Love & Special Sauce, co-founders of Outermost, together with their team of family members and business partners, tried to create a Cape Cod playlist for visitors and residents alike. “A lot of people that either rent homes down here, own second homes down here or live down here, they've got their playlist, right? Garrett and I and the team tried to work together to figure out who would be the best fit for that, to try to create that kind of Cape Cod Beach playlist,” says McNamara and smiles. “I think we collectively nailed it, that's for sure.”

Did Jack Johnson play at Outermost Festival?

In 2019, the festival’s premier year, around 3600 people attended what was then a one day festival. This year around 5,000 people got their groove on for two days with bands and artists such as Slightly Stoopid and Jack Johnson, the artist behind the Curious George soundtrack in 2006. “Which was spectacular,” says McNamara. “Again, he's an artist that really resonates with all generations.”

How will the festival benefit Orleans?

McNamara wears multiple hats as he's also the founder of the nonprofit friends of Nauset Beach, as well as a member of the Town of Orleans Economic Development Committee. For him they all correlate. “In terms of commerce, I would say that there was well over a million dollars of incremental revenue that came into the town based upon this festival itself, mainly through the restaurants and the shops and the bars,” says McNamara.

At one of the town meetings he had seen a deficit for Nauset Beach, which he calls Orleans's most valuable resource. Today, a portion of the revenue from the festival goes to the town Department of Natural Resources for the benefit of Nace Beach. This year's donation will go towards a wifi tower. Beach wifi, which today is spotty at best at Nauset Beach, will not only make card transactions run smoother during the festival, but it is also a safety issue. “The reality is people come down here in the summers with their friends and families to come to the beach, and so when you look out and you see like the replenished dunes and the parking lot adjustments that have taken place, to try to continue to protect this in whatever way we can,” says McNamara.

What is the future for the Outermost Festival?

McNamara sees the future growth of Outermost Festival and keeping Orleans thriving year around almost as a symbiotic relationship. “I’d love to see it grow a little bit in terms of people. There's real life examples of people that have brought friends here and they found this to be a dynamic town with everything that they were looking for, that maybe they had at home,” says McNamara. “They wanna move here full time and bring their businesses here. That is a movement that I think is needed. So if this festival can be a vehicle to really change a few things on that front and bring young families here to set up shop and o go to our schools and to be a contributor to our local economy… I mean, that's what it's all about.”