Treefort Music Fest starts on March 20, and it’s hard to overstate the leaps and bounds that its parent company, Duck Club, has made in the past year. Co-founder Eric Gilbert visited with City Cast Boise podcast guest host Nick Quah to talk about the opening of Treefort Music Hall, El Korah Shrine, and Boise’s “scene.”
This excerpt was edited for length and clarity. Listen to the whole interview here.
What is the Duck Club philosophy?
“I come out of the touring world, but I also grew up here in Boise and really wanted Boise to be a better place to stay as a musician, but also for musicians to play here for fans. So it really has been a very artist forward approach to how we can help develop a music scene that works for the locals and also better develops it for the touring community. So that's not maybe a mission statement per se, but that's definitely [been] our driving intention from the get go.”
What was the fundraising process for Treefort Music Hall like?
“It was more money than we’d ever raised. [We knew] the investors would understand what we’re doing. For a lot of them, it was more about the impact that we have on the community than the return on their money. … It gives me a lot of optimism. I really think the private sector needs to better understand how they can actually put their money to work in positive ways for their money but also for the things they want to see in their community.”
How have venue expansions helped Boise’s music scene?
“One thing I love now as the scene has developed, [with Duck Club] taking over the Shriners and now with the Shrine Social Club, is that there's not only more stage opportunities, but there's more opportunities in back of house. We have a bunch of young people shadowing with us on the production side, and those opportunities were hard to come by here for a long time.”
