Organizers of the Waking Windows festival in Winooski announced Wednesday that the event that takes over the city for three days in early May “won’t be the same as it has been in the past.”

The core crew that has kept the music-and-arts festival running for more than a decade – Paddy Reagan, Nick Mavodones, Matt Rogers and Ali and Brian Nagle – has had “some pretty seismic changes that have taken place in our lives,” according to the statement issued by the festival.

“There’ve been babies, second babies, adopted teens, new houses, new jobs, and new chapters of our lives,” according to the announcement. The festival “has always been a labor of love,” the statement reads, and doing something of the size of past years became less feasible.

According to the festival’s organizers, “the process of securing sponsorship dollars, going back and forth with agents (and each other) over who to book this year, stressing about ticket sales and the weather” and other factors “all seemed like an insurmountable task.”

“We could try to do it the same way we always did, but that didn’t seem healthy,” the statement reads. “So, what did we come up with? What will we do with the festival? The answer is: we still don’t actually know, but what we DO know is that in 2023 it won’t be the same as it has been in the past.” Waking Windows will “still be throwing some kind of party in early May in Winooski, VT that will look very different from our past festivals,” according to the statement.

The Waking Windows festival began more than a decade ago and gradually grew into the first big party of the season in northwestern Vermont. Thousands of music fans would circulate around the convoluted rotary that makes up the core of Winooski’s downtown to hear music from hundreds of performers on indoor and outdoor stages, and reacquaint themselves with each other after spending much of the winter holed up at home.

Last year’s event – the first since 2019 – was the biggest yet. Headlining acts including Japanese Breakfast, Dinosaur Jr. and Dry Cleaning helped the festival sell out of all available tickets for the first time ever.

“Ten years of putting this together with a shoestring budget and the willingness of some really kind and talented people so we could share with this amazing community our favorite touring, regional, and local bands, authors, comedians, deejays, vendors, performers, artists and artisans,” the statement reads, “all around the ridiculous rotary on a hopefully sunny weekend in May has really been a joy for all of us.”

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Waking Windows festival 'wont be the same as it has been in the past'