It started with a dream. Now Rocky Mountain Flower Fest is a dreamy music festival full of flowers that’s going on its fifth year.
“One of our friends went to sleep one night and woke up with a magical dream that she was wandering around a flower farm with mountains as the backdrop and music and flowers everywhere,” says Nikki McComsey, co-founder of Gather Mountain Blooms. “A year later we found Rocky Mountain Highway as the music festival collaborator, and we got to see the dream become a reality!”
Rocky Mountain Flower Fest blends a festive bouquet of beautiful blooming fields full of flowers with rollicking live bluegrass and Americana music, barn dancing, food trucks, craft beer, floral cocktails, artisan vendors, floral selfie stations and welcoming vibes for all. It has become a favorite on the local summer festival calendar, and Flower Fest is coming up again on Saturday, Aug. 8.
Held at the historic Venetucci Farm in Colorado Springs, Rocky Mountain Flower Festival is a celebration of summer, live music, natural beauty and Colorado community. It’s the kind of festival where everyone joins hands in a circle and dances together under the stars as the band closes out the night —one of McComsey’s favorite Flower Fest moments.
“It was moving and magical,” McComsey says. “And it was a quintessential moment of Rocky Mountain Flower Festival.”
About Rocky Mountain Flower Fest
Flower Fest got started as a partnership between Gather Mountain Blooms and Rocky Mountain Highway Music Collaborative, the local nonprofit behind MeadowGrass and other community-building live music events. The festival has blossomed into a space for community connection and a chance to enjoy the sweet notes of summer at the historic Venetucci Farm.
“Venetucci Farms holds a special place in the hearts of many people in the community. There have been many memories made here at the farm, mostly surrounding the pumpkin season,” McComsey says. (From the 1950s to 2002, the farm’s founder, Nick Venetucci, famously gave away millions of free pumpkins to local school children.) “With flowers now being grown at the farm, holding a music and flower festival only made sense. It provides the opportunity for new memories to be made.”
Now guests are invited to sip, savor and shimmy all afternoon and evening at Rocky Mountain Flower Fest. Food trucks serve bites. Craft beverages flow in the beer garden. And live bands play country, Americana, pop, bluegrass and folk tunes. This year’s lineup features Grass It Up and Patwork Jack, with line dancing in the barn between band sets. It is BYOC — Bring Your Own Chair — although you may not use it much if you stay on the dance floor.
McComsey says the flowers are exploding with color this year, with zinnias, sunflowers, marigolds and cosmos in their full glory. But don’t miss the supporting cast of McComsey’s favorites, including amaranth, dill and flowering basil. “They’re not as showy out in the garden, but they make for a beautiful bouquet element,” she says.
Those who purchase the “You-Pick Flowers” ticket can stroll the flower fields and create their own bouquet. And the selfie stations with all those flowers are always a big hit for everyone. While the entire festival grounds offer a picturesque backdrop for capturing memories, those curated photo stations filled with colorful blooms are guaranteed to pop in photos and your Instagram feed.
Craft stations also let festivalgoers assemble a flower crown or press flowers for special keepsakes. There is also an artisan market featuring handcrafted jewelry, soap, books, gifts and more.
How Gather Mountain Blooms Got Started
There’s a heartening, healing vibe at Flower Fest, which comes as no surprise. Research, such as this study at Rutgers University, has shown that flowers not only trigger immediate feelings of happiness, but have long-term positive effects on mood, lessening feelings of depression and anxiety and increasing feelings of enjoyment and life satisfaction. McComsey has experienced those effects firsthand.
In 2017, she suffered a life-changing concussion that led to debilitating migraines. Dark days were made brighter by her husband, Zach, who brought her flowers each week. As they searched for answers and healing, flowers helped McComsey to cultivate gratitude and hope, planting the seed that would become Gather Mountain Blooms.
With unwavering support from her family, particularly her sisters Leah and Abby Remacle who joined as business partners, Nikki’s vision blossomed into reality. Gather Mountain Blooms came to life in 2020 in Nikki’s backyard and grew larger with a move to Venetucci Farm in 2021. The family-run business now offers events and workshops throughout the year that include brunches and event dinners, live music, flower picking, Mother’s Day at the Farm, a pumpkin patch and more — including Rocky Mountain Flower Fest, of course.
“I think that people are becoming more and more disconnected from farms,” McComsey says. “While Venetucci has evolved over the years, we now have new and unique ways to experience a working farm and to imagine the history in these fields.”
McComsey and her sisters plant their seeds in January and grow them in greenhouses before transferring them to the fields. It’s a labor of love, but a rewarding one. McComsey says it’s a little surreal to see the farm filled with people and flowers and to feel the support of so many people for the small business.
“This is our sixth year at the farm, and sometimes we forget what that experience is like just walking onto a farm filled with flowers for the first time,” she says. “And the history of the place brings back a lot of memories for people. It’s so special for us to be able to see that in the eyes of others and to see them really light up when they enter the flower farm.”
Rocky Mountain Flower Fest Details
Aug. 8, 4-9 p.m.
- Location: Venetucci Farm, 5210 S. Highway 85
- Tickets: $30 General Admission; $55 General Admission and You-Pick Flowers (until sold out), $37 General Admission at the Gate
Schedule
- 4 p.m. — Doors Open: Alcohol Tent, Lemonade Stand, CoCo’s Ice Cream, Food Trucks, Artisan Market, Flower Crowns, You-Pick Flower Field, Photo Stations, Face Painting, Tarot Reading
- 4:30-6:30 p.m. — Patchwork Jack
- 6:30-7 p.m. — Line dancing in the barn
- 7-9 p.m. —Grass It Up
- 7 p.m. — Flower Crowns and You-Pick Flowers close
- 9 p.m. — Festival Ends
Find more details, FAQs, tickets and more at GatherMountainBlooms.com.
