Petit kept busy in the interim, including meeting his future wife in Stowe, and in 1997 the two left for New York City. Opportunity ultimately morphed an intended three-year NYC stint into seventeen. As he tells it, the couple took seven odd years just to negotiate an exodus, which finally came to fruition in 2016. Ultimately, they decided that Stowe was once again the best choice for a smooth landing.“ I always had a lot of love and respect for the local community and how much people support each other,” says Petit.
Despite that realization, the local festival idea didn’ t cross his mind again until four or five months in. As he tells it, George borrowed a bike and pedaled around Stowe to local businesses to gauge interest. Sure enough, he had 49 supporters in just 3 weeks. One location that became the first SJF mainstage locale was microbrewery juggernaut The Alchemist, whose owners Jen and
John Kimmich had hosted other artistic endeavors. George notes,“ Jen and John just get it. These are exceptional people and hugely supportive of our values.” Another early SJF supporter was Eric Santini, Petit’ s first partner and now its board director and production manager. Having locked in a mainstage, and a couple commitments for satellite locations at other local businesses, the festival was up and running.
The Work Involved
Sounds simple, doesn’ t it? For years, though, long before SJF achieved 501( c)( 3) status, Petit was doing nearly all the heavy lifting. Even now, with a board of nine hard-working and generous people, Petit muses,“ there’ s a lot of stuff that I still do to shepherd the event so it keeps its integrity and it keeps its mission.” He does this out of his own office and recording studio, not some locally rented office space with a different phone number and email address. A lot of that work encompasses artistic direction— curating well over 100 submissions from international and local artists. Petit then delegates certain leadership roles, with an eye / ear toward the future.“ At some point I’ m not going to be doing this anymore, so it would be great to have a team that does this without my having to herald everything. I’ m super fortunate to have the most effective board since we started: they take care of most of the lodging, artist hospitality, and food.”
In the meantime, volunteerism is a linchpin. Whether it’ s high school and college aged kids seeking community service hours, or older folks with a keen interest in seeing the Stowe music scene thrive, an army of 50( led by volunteer captain and board member Matt Gates) is there to assist with parking, information, or just making sure everything is running smoothly. This type of community