Saddle up for Psychs Peak 2025 — one of the raddest psych-rock camping festival in Colorado — which will be taking place at Historic Green Mountain Ranch near Pine, CO on September 5–6. Co-founded by Dave and Nate of the psychedelic desert-fuzz bands Ploom and Los Toms, this community-driven bash delivers an awesome showcase featuring local actus like Bitchflower alongside heavy hitters like Kadabra and Eaglewing as part of a 25-band lineup. Psychs Peak is a village of music, art and vendors. Attendees can anticipate two trailer stages and a new, cozy camp stage pumping out psych-rock riffs with Pikes Peak shinning in the background. Visual art installations by talents like Brooke Van Buiten, trippy live projections and vendors selling vintage threads and western jewelry will be cranking up the festival’s surreal vibe. With no corporate sponsors, this BYO fest is all based on passion, volunteer grit and ticket sales, keeping it affordable despite rising costs. Camping is free form, so pitch your tent wherever feels right, bring your gear and something cozy.
Come join the party that started as a backyard jam and has grown into a full blown weekend festival, truly an impressive feat. This is going to be an experience no self-respecting Colorado psych-rock enthusiast should miss. Learn more about the festival on their website and social media.
303 Magazine recently spoke with the festival organizers Dave and Nate on the past, future and present of Psychs Peak and everything in-store for this year’s lineup.
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303 Magazine: How did Psychs Peak first come together and did your bandmate’s experience organizing Endless Fest in Fort Collins play a role in shaping it?
Dave: The idea for Psychs Peak came together in the summer of 2020 when no one was doing shows due to COVID. My bandmates’ friend, Colin of Wandering Natives, had a small generator and PA system, so he asked my psych-rock band Ploom if we wanted to jam at a dispersed camping spot in the National Forest and invite all our friends. We came up with “Burning Ban” as the name for the event and it went well, so we ended up doing another one later in the summer and invited Nate and our buddies in the Ft. Collins band Los Toms to join. After the second Burning Ban, Nate and I decided to take the concept and turn it into an all day psych-rock camping event the next summer, and Nate coined the name Psychs Peak. In 2021, Nate also started his own fest in Ft. Collins called Endless fest. We both ran our respective individual festivals up until 2025 when Endless Fest went on hiatus due to their venue backing out of live music events. I think Nate and I both were heavily inspired by Desert Daze in California, which is a big psych camping fest where we met each other in 2018.
Nate: Dave and I started our respective festivals the same year (2021), so this whole experience has been occurring concurrently. We have bounced ideas and questions off each other throughout the years, so it really has felt like the two festivals have been intertwined. We were both heavily inspired by psych rock festivals like Desert Daze and Levitation, with Psychs Peak emulating the Desert Daze camping festival and Endless Fest mirroring the Levitation multi-venue in-the-city festival.
303: What does the lineup curation look like to showcase both Colorado’s local psych rock scene with the out of town acts and what was the process like for selecting the 25 bands this year?
Dave: Early on, we used to take submissions and sort through them, but we’ve increasingly started to have a good feel for who we want at the fest and simply reach out and ask bands. After marinating in the scene for a while, you get introduced to tons of bands who you can potentially invite. Nate is really good at keeping his ear to the ground in the regional and national psych scenes, so he’s a good resource to bounce ideas off of when it comes to the lineup. We like to keep it generally local-heavy because we’re friends with a lot of the bands and we know they’ll bring their local fans out to the fest. In a national act, we try to find a group we like that has the ability to make it to the fest and be within our budget.
Nate: Oh man, festival curation is no joke. I don’t know how the big 100+ artist fests do it. It’s a lot of juggling communications with bands and the team. I pretty much live inside of a spreadsheet. We have a few local staples that are on board each year that have made up the core of the Psychs Peak roster. I try to cycle in new local artists each year to keep it fresh and showcase the huge pool of talent we have here in Colorado. We get hundreds of submissions each year, so, for me, the hardest part of the lineup booking is actually crossing people off the selection list. I wish we could just have a festival with everyone playing, but it’s not a realistic scenario. Every year, we have to pass up on some really great artists just because there are only so many slots available. I have to balance bands with big draws, bands that are really psych-y and new up-and-coming talent.
303: What band were you most excited or surprised to get on the lineup this year? There are a few awesome national acts this year.
Dave: I’m always excited when a regional or national band is willing to travel to play Psychs Peak, so Kadabra was the surprise this year. They’re going to blow us all away with some heavy riffs. I’m pumped Eaglewing can make it this year, too. We’ve been wanting them for a couple years now. Also Rugburn. I should have put them on last year but glad to make it up to them this year.
Nate: Super excited to have Kadabra on board to hold down the heavy side of psych. Psych rock really is a massive spectrum, so getting these fellas on board is a real joy. Ending the main stage with such a powerhouse of a band is cathartic. My friend Ian helped make the connection with Kadabra, who had recently played a pretty niche van festival in Montana (called Montvana) that we played with Los Toms years back. It feels like things have kinda come full circle. I am also really excited to have Bitchflower as a local headliner. In addition to being great friends, the band is on a seriously upward trajectory (they’re playing Freakout in Seattle this year!). It is really great to see the Colorado music scene breaking into the national level.
303: Has the local community, such as Denver’s beer or pizza businesses, provided support or underwriting for the festival?
Dave: We have zero underwriting and no outside funding. The whole operation runs off of a credit card and a little bit of personal cash injection, so we have to make up everything with ticket sales, vendor fees, and merch sales. You can almost think of it as a crowd-funded party. Everything keeps getting more expensive every year too, so I apologize for having to raise prices. Sponsors are definitely a goal, but we haven’t been able to get any yet.
As a warning to anyone who wants to start a festival, I should mention we’ve never made any money doing this and no one who organizes or helps run it gets paid. We had a profit of $36 last year, which is the best we’ve ever done. That’s almost enough to buy 2 sandwiches at Snarfs!
Nate: We’re still new to underwriting and sponsorship, so most of the work is still very DIY on our end. One of our goals as the festival grows is to get local businesses involved. There is a lot of space for beer, pizza, food and vendors at Green Mountain Ranch, so we definitely see Psychs Peak scaling up over the coming years. That being said, we don’t have a beer sponsor as of yet. Denver brewmasters, there is still time to hop on the wagon!
303: With camping being a big part of Psychs Peak at Green Mountain Ranch, what’s the camping experience like, and how does the ranch setting enhance the festival vibe?
Dave: Green Mountain Ranch is actually an old Ute tribe summer camp spot. There’s evidence of some human-modified trees and a few other things the owner can tell you about. Camping fests are always better than non-camping fests because you’re with the same group of like-minded folks for a whole weekend. You don’t have to take an Uber back to your apartment when the show is over. You can walk over to your friends’ tent at 3am to say hi if you want and people are generally more welcoming and inviting. We don’t have designated camping spots, so you can roll up and camp wherever you want, and take whatever space you want (within reason). The trees provide great shade during hot days and you can find a secluded spot if that’s what you’re looking for. There’s also a clear view of Pikes Peak from the top of the ridge, which will lurk in the distance during the full moon we’re going to have at the fest.
Nate: Camping festivals are so immersive. I just got back from King Gizzard’s Field of Vision and had the time of my life. The camping element really kicks the festival up multiple notches. Green Mountain Ranch has so much space for camping, and it is well distributed throughout the forest. You have plenty of shade and hammock spots. At night, the entire forest is glowing with different campsites. It really takes on the form of a village. It’s super cool.
303: Can you tell us about the visual art installations and vendors at Psychs Peak and how they might complement the music and overall experience?
Dave: Last year was our first year with art installations and we’re going to have a couple more this year. The interactive ones were super cool to see at night while out on a stroll of the grounds. We’re going to scatter them around the site to encourage people to take a walk and meet their neighbors.
Nate: This year we are incorporating some really cool stage designs thanks to talented artists like Brooke Van Buiten — who is also the vocalist of Bitchflower. The art installations add an element of the surreal to the event that really connects with the psychedelic vibes of the music. We also have live projectionists doing visuals, which has been a part of psychedelic rock since Pink Floyd and the UFO Club days. It’s another component of the immersion factor. Vendors add a lot to the event as well. My favorite from last year were the vintage clothing crews. It was pretty rad to look out into the crowd and see everyone accessorizing with new festival drip. I’ve heard we will have a pretty legendary western wear jeweler in attendance this year, but I can’t officially confirm the rumors. Both the artists and vendors are a big reminder that the music community extends beyond just the performing artists. Psychedelia really is a multi-media congregation.
303: What’s your favorite memory from a previous year’s lineup at Psychs Peak?
Dave: Back in 2022, we were still out in Pike National Forest at almost 10,000ft elevation. During shadow work’s set, a thunderstorm popped up to the west heading right for us. We joke about them summoning the storm and lightning. I had to run up and ask them if they wanted to keep playing as the wind started gusting and things started to get wild. Eventually, it was looking too sketchy to keep going, so we had to stop the fest for an hour and send everyone to their cars. That was our first encounter with bad weather, and while it sucked as an organizer at the time, it’s fun to look back on now. We were able to get the fest back on track with cut-down set times and every band ended up getting to play, even if it was only for 20 minutes.
Nate: Favorite memory for me was having Kangaroo Court, a Chicago-based psych/garage outfit, perform at Psychs Peak 3. We lost our venue location a month or so in advance of the event and had to scramble for a last-minute spot. The festival ended up being way out in the middle of the desert, near Moffet, CO. It was an intense year with a long drive and scorching sun. The harshness of the elements seemed to amplify the party as the sun went down. Kangaroo Court’s set was demolishing, cathartic and a real face-melter.
303 Magazine: With Psychs Peak growing each year, how do you balance keeping it affordable while enhancing the fan experience?
Dave: It’s hard to keep the budget in check. We have to do a lot of stuff as cheaply as possible and cut corners on things that aren’t safety-related. For example, we build the stages on top of flatbed trailers with volunteers, using a pile of lumber that I store in my backyard all year. It’s the only option we can afford at the moment without jacking up ticket prices, which we want to keep as low as possible. We’re always skating the line of breaking even or losing money. The easiest way we can “pay” people to help is by giving them free admission in exchange for something. We are a pretty bare bones operation, but that gives the attendees the chance to form the festival into their own thing, and we live off the attendees vibes and spirit. Another thing is that we don’t sell food or alcohol. Everything is BYO, so that helps people keep their cost to attend down.
Nate: Everything just keeps getting more expensive, so scaling up the festival has to be done with care. A lot of events seem to scale up too quickly and end up shutting down (Desert Daze, UMS to name two close to our hearts). It’s important to us to keep growing the festival by adding national level bands, but we still keep the roster mostly local. Our goal every year is just to break even. Dave and I have talked about what the festival means, both to us and the community, and our hope is that it can remain a super fun, camping party with great music. Not being profit-driven is a double-edged sword though. On one hand we are community-focused and our decision making reflects that. We keep the event as affordable as possible and all profits (if there are any) get cycled to the local artists. On the other side of things, there is a financial stress behind throwing a festival on your own. If things don’t shake out right, we end up in a pretty deep hole that jeopardizes our ability to keep the party going. Our blood pressure definitely spikes in the weeks leading up to the event.
303 Magazine: How do the three stages at Psychs Peak differ in terms of setup, vibe, or the types of performances they host? Do you have someone to help with the designs?
Dave: We’ll have two big flatbed trailer stages and a smaller ground-level stage this year. The two big stages are designed by my cousin George, who is a civil engineer and knows structure design very well. We’ve run the calculations and done the math, and are ready for 40mph winds and rain. They’re going to be bigger than last year, and I hope the bands find them less cramped. The smaller stage will have a more intimate vibe and will be what we start and end the day with. Look out for the DJs over there late-night.
Nate: We have two main stages, which share a sound system thanks to the talented Mat Keller, so it is pretty easy to bounce acts back and forth without the audience needing to trek to a new stage. Those stages are built up on flatbed trailers (very DIY) which have been continuously improved upon over the years. The third stage is a new development this year and will be more centered to the camp, both for early morning and late night sets. The main stage has certain time constraints that limit the total number of artists that can perform. I came up with the plan to put together the camp stage as a way of including six more bands on this year’s roster. The designs are pretty collaborative with different people tackling different elements. The camp stage is a collab between myself and Nik Szejna, the recording engineer on most Los Toms albums. My good buddy Reed Hatzenbuhler is lending a hand with design and construction of the stages as well. Without heaps of volunteers and collaborators, there is no way we could pull off this event.
303 Magazine: Do you foresee Psychs Peak continuing for the foreseeable future, post this year’s lineup and could it expand further in any ways?
Dave: Yeah, I think we’ll keep Psychs Peak rolling as long as we don’t lose too much money one year or if I eventually don’t have the time to put into it anymore. I want to start bringing in more people to help because it’s a lot of work for a small team. I think if we do a better job with marketing and more people know about it, we’ll have a bigger audience and can keep expanding. King Gizzard just had about 10k people drive 2.5 hours from Denver for a 3-day camping all-psych lineup, so the appetite is out there. We just have to do a better job of tapping into it.
Nate: We certainly plan to keep Psychs Peak running in some capacity for the foreseeable future. For most of us, it is the most fun weekend of the year. We are in a spot right now where there is a lot of space to grow into. Green Mountain Ranch has quite a lot of scalability in terms of size. Once we cross a certain audience threshold, we will be looking at the event going later into the night. Teaming up with local businesses and sponsors is absolutely crucial to the festival growing in the coming years. Sponsorship allows us to offer guarantees to larger touring artists, and we have our eyes on some really rad psych acts for next year.
Get tickets to Psychs Peak 2025 here!
Check out the full lineup below:
