Participation Row at LOCKN’ 2016: What a Beautiful Buzz!

The biggest and best LOCKN’ Participation Row is in the books!

The LOCKN' Festival in Arrington, Virginia featured Phish, Phil Lesh, My Morning Jacket, and HeadCount’s Participation Row social action village.

Participation Row was a collection of 17 non-profit organizations doing non-partisan voter education and fun, socially conscious activities. Nearly 2,000 fans stopped by and completed four actions, and were rewarded with a free scoop of Ben+Jerry’s ice cream plus a free 30-day subscription to the music video streaming service Qello (sponsor of LOCKN’ Participation Row). Plus Bo Cunningham of Lynchburg, VA won a D’Angelico guitar signed by all the headliners in a free drawing.

Bo had once been a volunteer at Participation Row!

A highlight for us was also registering a LOCKN’-record 236 voters, including one of our own volunteers who recently had his voting rights restored by the governor of Virginia. We also were amazed by the unique election-related activities and education that all the non-profit organizations presented.

In all, LOCKN’ attendees took 7,728 socially conscious actions at Participation Row. The Food Drive organized by Conscious Alliance received over 4,000 pounds of food donations for the Nelson County Food Pantry. REVERB sold out of LOCKN” reusable water bottles. And collectively we raised well over $20,000 for Participation Row charities and the Nelson County Food Pantry.

OK, now let’s talk about the LEGENDARY LOCKN’ guitars. As you may know, every year the LOCKN’ headliners sign a couple D’Angelico guitars. One is given away in a free drawing. Another is auctioned to the highest bidder.

This year the guitars were signed by Phil Lesh, Phish, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, My Morning Jacket, Ween, Umphrey's McGee, Dave Schools, Gary Clark Jr., Chris Robinson, Lettuce, Joe Russo & Anders Osborne.

The auction closed at $10,250. An AJ Masthay poster signed by the same artists went for $2,200.

Participation Row featured Virginia organizations, Lynchburg Humane Society, Nelson County Tourism, the North Branch School, the Park School, The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, Wild Virginia, Project GROWS and Wintergreen Adaptive Sports. They were joined by Virginia chapters of NORML and Giving Hope Foundation, and national groups like Appalachian Voices, Conscious Alliance, Love Hope Strength, MIMA Music, Recycle Life, REVERB, Moms Clean Air Force and United Plant Savers.

See you next year on Participation Row!