Meet Fort Collins Musicians Association Fort Collins Music eXperiment | FoCoMA & FoCoMX

We had the good fortune of connecting with Fort Collins Musicians Association Fort Collins Music eXperiment and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Fort Collins Musicians Association, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
We started the Fort Collins Musicians Association as a way to support local music in Northern Colorado. It originally began as really informal weekly meetings of musicians / music industry in our community coming together to talk about the struggles of just trying to create and perform music in an ever changing landscape. Our first “meeting” happened after we lost a number of venues within a couple of weeks; including The Starlight, Mishawaka, Linden’s and more. It was such a loss for our community as all of these spots were music venues with dedicated stages / production and they supported local music. We had no idea at the time that we would eventually morph into a non-profit with a formalized mission and all of the work we would be doing. It was sincerely just a bunch of kids that cared about our local musicians and music scene.

What should our readers know about your business?
We are very much a grassroots organization. FoCoMA has been around for almost 20 years. We are dedicated to serving the local musicians of Colorado. That can look like a lot of different things and we try to be plugged into the issues happening in our scene and be very responsive to those needs. We work to support mental health, food insecurity, housing crisis, overall well-being, networking events, professional development and much more. We began in Fort Collins and our cornerstone event is FoCoMX – which is a 2 day music festival that happens each April. It’s essentially a weekend celebrating our local music community. We feature over 300 acts on over 35 stages that weekend and it is volunteer powered, which we have so much gratitude that people care enough about our local musicians to make it happen. This will be our 15th year and it’s been called “The biggest little festival in America.” Although it began as a way to celebrate Fort Collins music, we quickly realized that the best way to to support it was to include ALL Colorado music as that is really what creates community. OMG. If you only knew how many lessons we’ve learned… this whole article could be dedicated to that topic alone. We will say that FoCoMX is called The Fort Collins Music eXperiment because we weren’t sure if it would even work the first year we did it. It was like jumping into so many unknowns and we always want to try new things and to not be afraid to change, which is one reason we’re 15 years in and we kept the name. It reminds us that it’s always an experiment.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
To anyone that did want to come to Fort Collins this April and check out FoCoMX, these are some of the things we would recommend to add to your itinerary. Fort Collins is very much music oriented and for a music centric visit, we would definitely suggest staying at the Elizabeth Hotel. It is a music themed boutique hotel situated in Old Town Fort Collins. It features a musical lending library where guests can check out instruments to play in their room. Each room also comes with a turntable and records. The lobby also has additional records that you can check out and there are a surprising number of local albums to choose from. We have a bicycle library, so you travel around easily and navigate the city on some super cool trails. Also there is a great public transportation system that is currently running free of charge and includes the Max, which can take you from Old Town to mid-town and the south side if you wanted to get a feel for the whole city. It runs back and forth all day. Fort Collins is known as a craft brewery scene. We’re home to Odell, New Belgium, Equinox, Horse & Dragon, Funkwerks, Zwei, Stodgy, Intersect and so many more. A lot of these breweries also support local music and have great patios, so you can check their calendars and pop in for a free show and eat at a local food truck. If you are not a drinker, most offer a great selection of non-alcoholic options including delicious kombucha and house made bubbly water! Make sure to stop by the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery which has a massive music and sound lab which is like a smaller version of the Museum of Pop Culture (formerly EMP) in Seattle. They have lots of hands on musical instrument exhibits and a 360 degree digital dome that hosts local concerts. Fort Collins is also home to The Blasting Room, which is a world class recording studio built by Bill Stevenson of the Descendents and Jason Livermore. They have the absolute best merch if you wanted to buy something local to take home and also support a local business. We have a Pianos About Town program where local artists paint these beautiful pianos and they are located all over Fort Collins in public places and people are encouraged to play them. Our streets are literally alive with the sound of music. FoCo also has The Music District which is a 7 building campus dedicated to the art and business of local music. We are a college town and home to CSU, which has lots of amazing things but it features a super cool on-campus pub with food and live music called The Ramskeller. It’s located in the student center and is next door to our campus radio station, 90.5 FM KCSU so you can watch the DJs live on air while hanging out. There are many lifestyle companies that call Fort Collins home with storefronts that are honestly kind of exclusive to here ie TOPO Designs, Otterbox, Kansas City Kitty, Wounded Heart Press, Pine Printing, Go West and so many more. There are super fun record stores to check out including Bizarre Bazarr, All Sales Vinyl, Driver 8 and Little Horse Vintage. We have some RAD venues with something for everyone: Mishawaka (their stage is over the Poudre River!!), Surfside 7 (the best pizza slices in town with vegan options!), Washington’s, The Aggie, Avo’s, The Comedy Fort, The Atrium, Swing Station, The Coast, 830 North (you can bowl next to the bands), The Lyric (which also is a HUGE art installation and movie house), The Magic Rat, Ace Gillette’s and so many more. As you might can tell, we LOVE Fort Collins and could most likely go on forever with places to check out. Please message us if you want to know more!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Our music community and our musicians are the reason that FoCoMA and FoCoMX exist. We are continually inspired by their love of creating and performing.

Website: https://focoma.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/focomx

Twitter: https://twitter.com/focomx

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/focomx/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@focomx936

Other: https://open.spotify.com/user/31hyr5zzrsmdqb67wrrc2z6rm5d4?si=e5372c40fab04ee9

Image Credits
Marc Leverette Photography Backstage Flash