CANCELLED: The 2016 Clearwater Great Hudson River Revival

The Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival – the annual Hudson Valley music festival that American music icon Pete Seeger founded and hosted for decades – has been canceled this year because the environmental conservation group that operates the two-day festival is facing financial trouble.

During a meeting on Wednesday (January 20), the board of directors for the Sloop Clearwater organization based in Beacon decided to cancel the long-running festival which had been scheduled to take place at Croton Point Park in Croton-On-Hudson on Saturday & Sunday, June 18 & 19.

Clearwater Executive Director Peter Gross says that the organization can’t risk money on the festival which earned $31,000 last summer, after posting an average net income of $162,000 over the previous six years. The 2015 Clearwater festival featured an all-star line-up of performers, including the Mavericks, Neko Case, Guster, Ani DiFranco, Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Angélique Kidjo, Bettye LaVette, the Felice Brothers, the Lone Bellow and many others.

The festival has been Clearwater’s primary fundraiser since it was started in the 1970s by folksinger, environmental activist and longtime Beacon resident Pete Seeger, who died two years ago at the age of 94.

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Facing ‘deep trouble’ financially, Clearwater cancels annual festival by John W. Barry at The Poughkeepsie Journal