Veg out at Portland's first vegan festival

Meat eaters welcome, too, for munchies, music, beer and more

Nic Adler wants to make one thing perfectly clear: Carnivores are welcome to come to his festival.

The owner of the legendary Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles, Adler and others have been putting on a vegan and beer festival in his hometown for six years now. About 60 percent of the attendees are meat-eaters, he says.

“We’re not asking anyone to be vegan,” Adler says, adding the California festival was a hit with thousands of people, some of whom eat only plant-based food and others who can munch on meat products daily.

“It was a very eclectic crowd, a lot of different communities coming to one event.”

Now, in cooperation with a variety of area restaurants, bars and other vendors, Adler and his team are bringing their idea to the Rose City, which hosts the first ever Portland Vegan Beer & Food Festival at Zidell Yards, 3121 S.W. Moody Ave., in the South Waterfront District, from 1 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26 (www.veganbeerfest.com).

Vendors will be selling everything from clothing to vinyl to craft goods, and the event offers chalk walls, cornhole (beanbag toss), and a giant Jenga game.

“There’s probably not a better market for vegan food and great beer than Portland,” Adler says, noting the festival offers more than 50 breweries serving 100 plus beers and ciders, as well as 50 vegan restaurants, food trucks, carts and food vendors. Free kambucha also will be offered to patrons, Adler says.

Festival-goers for the 21-and-over event can get a four-ounce tasting glass with which to sample an unlimited number of drinks. Nondrinking tickets are available as well, and prices range from $25 to $65 in advance, and $35 to $75 the day of the festival. Food is not included in the ticket.

The festival also features music from alt folk rockers Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, Portland rockers Mimicking Birds, the Lovebomb Go-Go Marching Band, folk rockers Modern Kin, and psych-surf rockers Genders.

“We’ve kind of taken a little microcosm of Portland and put it in this festival,” Adler says.

Veteran vegan

Adler has some experience with big festivals — he’s handled food and beverage curation at the noted California music festival Coachella for the past two years, and also has worked the country music bash Stagecoach. The son of actress Britt Ekland and film and music producer Lou Adler, Nic Adler grew up around people who think big — his Grammy-winning dad helped produce the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival. Nic chuckles about his father’s affinity — or lack thereof — for the vegan lifestyle.

“My dad recently told me, ‘I really don’t like vegan food,’” he says. However, Adler says he embraced the vegan lifestyle 20 years ago to support a friend who got seriously ill and then got better by eating vegan food, and now he loves the fact he feels healthy and also is promoting animal welfare.

“I just came out on the other side feeling great,” he says of going from eating meat and dairy products to his current palate. “I just think the more that people, in general, get to experience good food that happens to be vegan, the more they would be apt to try it in other situations.”

Go band, go

Even if you’re not about microbrews and meatless munchies, the Vegan Beer & Food Festival offers a tasty musical lineup. For example, take LoveBomb Go-Go Marching Band, led by bassist-sousaphonist Mars Ponte. This festive Portland band features a cast of 15-20 marchers who play drums, trumpet, saxophone and other instruments. The group also employs a small dance team. Ponte chuckles when asked how he would describe the band’s music.

“It’s tribal, and simultaneously both primitive and complex,” he says, noting that he writes most of the band’s music by multitracking various instruments at home onto recordings he then shares with the players. The tunes are “interstellar indie Balkan funk punk,” “spacey 60s,” “horn-driven glam performance art” and “genre-bending danceable Euro-pop,” he says.

The hard-working band has a decidedly Balkan flavor, and they are looking into touring Turkey and southern and rastern Europe next year. LoveBomb Go-Go plays a lot —120 shows in 2014 alone, 17 of which were at the Burning Man festival in Nevada. LoveBomb Go-Go puts a premium on getting people excited to hear them.

“If we can, we like to actually march up onto the stage to do a set — it’s more dramatic,” Ponte says. “We want to unite people and help them to be more purposeful and empowered.”

The group itself is a spiritual family, he says, likening traveling together on their bus to “one big extended slumber party.” He adds that while he enjoys smaller musical ensembles, there’s something particularly compelling about bands like his and the similarly minded MarchFourth, another prominent Portland marching band for which Ponte has played.

“I think there is a breadth and depth to the sonic possibilities that you just don’t get with smaller bands,” he says.