StrangeCreek Campout is the kind of festival that doesn’t need a marketing department because the people who’ve been know, and they tell exactly the right people. Now in its twenty-third year under the Wormtown banner — the collective has been throwing festivals since 1999 — this Memorial Day weekend gathering at Camp Keewanee in Greenfield, Massachusetts is the unofficial start of summer for a devoted tribe of jam fans, freaks, and weekend refugees from the real world. May 22–25, 2026. Bring a tent, bring friends, leave expectations at the gate.
A Bill That Rewards the Faithful
Max Creek headlines, which is exactly right for a festival built on the New England jam community’s deep roots. The band has been at it since 1971 — older than most festivals, older than most festival-goers — and their presence here is less a booking than a benediction. Alongside them: Dirtwire’s genre-defying electronics-meet-roots alchemy, The Machine’s note-perfect Pink Floyd channeling, and Pink Talking Fish, who continue to prove that mashing up Phish, Talking Heads, and Pink Floyd is an idea that should have existed decades earlier.
Neighbor — the Connecticut jam band with serious momentum — shares the bill with Badfish (the definitive Sublime tribute), Ryan Montbleau’s soul-drenched songwriting, and Consider the Source, whose progressive Middle Eastern–infused instrumentals can derail a conversation from fifty feet away. SunSquabi adds electronic funk, Hayley Jane brings theatrical energy, Bella’s Bartok delivers Balkan-punk chaos, Fireside Collective holds it down for the bluegrass contingent, and Sneezy rounds things out with genre-agnostic groove.
The Camp Keewanee Experience
StrangeCreek happens at an actual lakeside summer camp, and the setting defines the vibe. You’re camping among cabins and pine trees on a property built for community, not commerce. It looks and feels nothing like the fenced-in festival grounds that dominate the circuit. A portion of proceeds benefits Camp Keewanee directly, which means your ticket money does something beyond lining a promoter’s pockets.
Weekend passes run $200, and if you buy in-store at participating retailers, there are no fees — a small detail that says a lot about how the Wormtown crew thinks about their audience.
Ninety Minutes from Albany
Greenfield sits just across the Massachusetts border, an easy ninety-minute drive from the Capital Region. For Upstate New York’s jam community, StrangeCreek fills the Memorial Day weekend slot perfectly — early enough in the season to scratch the itch, intimate enough to feel like a secret, and booked with enough depth to justify the drive ten times over.
The Wormtown crew has been doing this longer than most. StrangeCreek is their flagship, and 2026 looks like another year where the family reunion delivers exactly what it promises: music, camping, community, and the distinct feeling that you’ve found your people.