Progressive Rock Festival RoSFest Returns Under New Board of Directors

Change We Must, to Live Again!
In the words of Jon Anderson, “Change we must, to live again”, we find hope, resolution, and a renewed sense of excitement. With these lyrics in mind, it is my great pleasure to announce that with the change, RoSfest will continue to produce one of the best progressive rock festivals in the world located in tropical Sarasota, Florida, but under new leadership and board of directors to further support and grow this endeavor.

The Rites of Spring Festival has been a treasure in the progressive rock world for the last 17 years and it has been my pride and privilege to create, produce, host, and share the experience with you, our RoSfest audience!
New to producing RoSfest, but not to the world of progressive rock, our new leadership team have been supportive members of our festival’s family for years. I feel honored to be able to pass the torch to such a dedicated group of musical masters.

Please give a warm RoSfest welcome to our new leadership team and read below for more detail about their background and accomplishments; John Blangero, Nick Katona, Tony Anzalone, Rebecca Avelar, Octavia Brown, and Lisa Wetton.

The team will follow up with information regarding everything RoSfest as the information becomes available. I will continue to support the festival as a consultant and remain its biggest fan. As I’ve previously mentioned, it has been an honor to interact with such accomplished and inspiring musicians and music lovers in the progressive rock community. Long Live RoSfest!
George Roldan

John Blangero
A scientist, musician, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. John is well known as one of the world’s leading biomedical researchers with a focus on complex disease genetics. As a singer/songwriter, he recently released his first solo album under the moniker of Sun King Rising on Peacock Sunrise Records and fronts the progressive rock band, Harlequin Reborn. He also is a co-founder and Board member of 4TellX, an Austin-based predictive analytics company.

Nick Katona
Is an iconic figure in progressive rock music circles as the President of the Melodic Revolution Music Group which includes record labels, Melodic Revolution Records, and PeacockSunrise Records. He has experience developing and managing small festivals as the owner and operator of an independent music store. As a music promoter, he also owns and operates Power of Prog and ReZonatZ, both internet music blog publications, and has worked as an internet DJ since 2011.

Tony Anzalone
Has a BBA in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame and has served in a variety of administrative and management roles in private industry. He has been active in the music business since the 80’s when he managed his first band. Currently, he is the manager of rock acts, Sun King Rising and Harlequin Reborn. He is also an administrator and officer in the World Prog Project. Tony now lives in Sarasota, Florida, and will take on much of the local leg work and financial management associated with RoSfest.

Rebecca Avelar
Is currently the Director of Marketing and Promotions for the MRR Music Group and is Street Team Manager for House of Prog and Power of Prog. She has extensive experience in accounting and human resource management.

Octavia Brown
Better-known for her close involvement with Italy’s 2Day Prog + 1 Festival, has already been a member of the RoSfest crew making her a familiar face to many prior RoSfest attendees. Based in Italy, she works as a freelance translator (recent works include the English version of Mario Giametti’s ‘Genesis – 1967 to 1975: The Peter Gabriel Years ‘) while spending most of her free time…. Hang on, what free time?

Lisa Wetton
Is a Syracuse transplant, Lisa Wetton routed herself firmly into the progressive music scene after co-founding Smokewind Music, an agency that specialized in world and progressive music bookings, and which has recently transitioned into audio and visual production. In 2015, she retired from practicing medicine and moved to the U.K. to be closer to her beloved husband, the late music icon, John Wetton. She currently spends her days drinking tea, making compost, and getting paid to hit things. Her most recent work has been with Edison’s Children, United Progressive Fraternity, and Southern Empire.

The Rites of Spring festival or RoSfest is an annual progressive rock music festival taking place at the end of April or in early May.

Established in 2004, the festival was first held at the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania until 2007, and then moved to the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, Pennsylvania for 2008 and 2009. In 2010, the festival moved to the Majestic Theater in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and in 2019, the festival moved to its current location at the Sarasota Opera House in Sarasota, Florida.

On December 26, 2020, co-founder George Roldan announced on the official RoSfest Facebook page that RoSfest would end its 16-year run as of 2020. Increasingly expensive production and travel costs, combined with tighter visa restrictions for international artists traveling to the United States, plus financial losses resulting from the cancellation of the 2020 festival due to the COVID-19 pandemic had made continuing the festival unsustainable. 

However, on February 1, 2021, Roldan posted another announcement stating that RoSfest would continue under a new organization. New event dates have yet to be announced.
From Wikipedia

The festival is known for importing some fantastic talent from around the world including Flor de Loto (PE), Anglagård (Sweden), Spock’s Beard (US), Riverside (Poland) IQ (UK), Magic Pie (Norway), Unified Past (US), Pain of Salvation (Sweden), Lazuli (France), RPWL (Germany), Ambrosia (US), Kinetic Element (US), The Flower Kings (Sweden), Evership (US), among others.

RoSfest online
Website: https://rosfest.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RoSfest
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/rosfest
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosfest/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Rosfest1

RoSfest opens Ticketing Counter for Gold Tickets this Saturday at noon!

Description

RoSfest Gold tickets go on sale October 19th at 12:00 noon EST.

Gold Seat tickets gives you admittance to three days of the festival for Friday, Saturday and Sunday and will be available for sale at the total ticket price of $355.00 each.

For credit card purchases, add an additional TBA.

Gold Tickets provide you with select premium seating, a special limited-edition Gold ticket wrist band and a 11″ x 17′ RoSfest autograph poster.

How to order tickets.
Step 1. TBA

For patrons that donated advance funds to Guardians of the Galaxy, non-for-profit status funding, call George Roldan directly to select your seats.
(484-432-7357)

Payment must be received within 10 days or your seat selection will be released.
Once payment is received, your tickets will be mailed out to you.
That’s it!

Refund Policy:
All sales are final. We are unable to offer refunds, exchanges, or receive ticket donations.

About RoSfest
The Rites of Spring Festival, better known as RoSfest, is the Premier International Art Rock Festival in North America and has successfully featured 159 Progressive Rock Bands over the past 15 years from around the world. Now in our 16th year, RoSfest is an annual 3-day event showcasing 11 prominent live bands featuring ALL original music from around the globe. Our new home at the Sarasota Opera House (an audio-files dream) located in Sarasota, Florida raises the bar even higher as RoSfest delivers an incredible line-up to perform in a spectacular venue located in one of the best vacation destinations in the USA

2020 Lineup:
Cast – Big Big Train – Thank You Scientist – United Prog Fraternity – Pattern Seeking Animals – Arc Iris – Dilemma – Lobate Scarp – Moon Letters – The Tea Club

Festival Dates May 8th, 9th, & 10th, 2020

Follow RoSfest
http://rosfest.com
https://www.facebook.com/RoSfest/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/rosfest/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1692271961045972/

RoSfest Reaches out to Supporters for Radio and Print Ad Funding

Hello Everyone! It’s George Roldan and Beth Wilson, the people who bring you the Rites of Spring Festival, otherwise known as RoSfest, (North America’s premier art rock festival). As we approach RoSfest 2019 in May, we are asking for your support to help us expand our reach into the Florida market with critical ad and radio campaigns. We love Progressive Rock and would like to guarantee that RoSfest succeeds by reaching a larger audience.

About This Project:

As many of you may know, RoSfest, independently owned by Roldan Entertainment and self-financed without any concessions from the music industry, has been going strong now for 15 years and has been primarily located in the Northeast with a strong fan base. We recently moved it to the sunny state of Florida in the city of Sarasota in hopes of growing our Prog family and continuing the festival for many years to come.

We have promoted progressive rock bands both domestically and internationally. Our festival has always been about the music and the fans and we are asking for your help to contribute to our campaign and make it a success. The progressive rock community needs festivals like RoSfest to help our music and enable the artists to have a strong platform to expose their music to the world.  There are only a handful of these great independent events left in the USA, let alone the world.

RoSfest, created in 2004, is now in its 16th year!   We have put in countless hours of preparation which will lead up to a wonderful 3-day weekend of musical bliss for all who attend in May 2019.  Spending a lot of our own money to keep RoSfest going year after year, we are now appealing to our RoSfest family to join us in support so we can expand our reach to a larger audience by using Radio and Magazines to advertise.

We appeal to you, the music lover, to help us put RoSfest and progressive rock bands into the media and into the mainstream. Our plan is to promote RoSfest through media including local radio as well as regional and national magazine ads.  We will continue to use social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to help promote RoSfest, but that’s not enough to get the word out. Our goal is to raise $6,500.00 to support these efforts.

You can help in a number of ways by donating to this Indiegogo campaign. Your contribution will help RoSfest get the word out to people who have no idea that this wonderful awesome festival exists. When people listen to Progressive music, it really helps heal the soul!  By donating, you will be helping the bands get the attention they deserve.   Our bands this year have been very responsive by donating very special one-off items as well as signed CD’s, customized recordings, records and drum heads to support this fundraiser as well as many other perks.

Some people just can’t contribute, but that doesn’t mean you can’t help:

Other Ways You Can Help

The more people who are aware of our radio and print campaign, the better our chances of raising the necessary funds. By emailing your friends about RoSfest, posting a link to this page on Facebook, or spreading the word on Twitter, you will be giving us enormous support.

Thank you so much for joining in and becoming an active part of our RoSfest family!

Pledge! Our anticipated completion date for RoSfest Radio and Magazine Ads is November 31, 2019. Please help us raise the money we need to allow us to get the word out. All funds raised will go directly towards the media campaign which in turn helps RoSfest.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/rosfest/

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER!
https://twitter.com/Rosfest1

PLEASE: EMAIL YOUR FRIENDS, POST A LINK ON FACEBOOK, OR TWEET ABOUT US.
We would love to hear from you!
| george@rosfest.combeth@rosfest.com |

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