One of Christian music’s premier summer events, Sonshine Festival recently wrapped up its 2008 event at the Willmar Civic Center in Willmar, MN, seeing great success in its 27th year.

Despite most Festival and event attendance being on a downturn, Sonshine Festival experienced one of the best years in its history, with 20,000 fans in attendance for the weekend’s events. The added fourth night, a free concert intended as a “thank you” to the community, was also a huge success as over 15,000 people enjoyed Jars of Clay’s Wednesday night performance.

“We want to thank everyone who came out and made Sonshine Festival 2008 one of our biggest years ever!” expresses Michael Scanland, Festival co-director. “We had a great success with our new free night on Wednesday – all who attended were blessed with the music of Jars of Clay. It is the least we can do to thank our loyal supporters for the last 27 years. We look forward to continuing the tradition with another free Wednesday night performance in 2009!”

This year’s schedule featured six stages of events, with popular artists such as TobyMac, Flyleaf, Newsboys, David Crowder Band, Hawk Nelson, Thousand Foot Krutch, Pillar, and John Reuben. The HM Stage raised the roof with its biggest year ever, featuring As I Lay Dying, Flatfoot 56, August Burns Red and others. The Sports Arena Stage also had great success with thousands of extreme sports fans taking in the Powerteam, Chaos on Wheels and World Impact Wrestling. New for this year, the Hip Hop Stage was also a hit.

Sonshine Festival also offered children’s programming at the Big Top Stage where younger attendees could watch Bob and Larry from Veggie Tales and comedy performances, as well as take part in arts and crafts.

Bob Poe, Festival Founder sums up the event and looks to the future: “Sonshine 2008 is in the history books and we are grateful to all the attendees who spent the weekend at Sonshine. I trust it was a highlight of the summer for many and, as we start to plan Sonshine 2009, so will many of the thousands who attended '08! Our commitment is to continue to provide the best in Christian music and an opportunity to broaden relationships with God and friends. Sonshine 2009 will once again be a four day event, July 15-18, and contain something special for the whole family!”

About Sonshine Festival
Launched in 1982 by local Willmar, MN youth pastor, Bob Poe, Sonshine Festival has grown from 1,800 attendees in its first year to 25,000 in 2007. The Willmar Community College Campus played host to the event for the first four years and after outgrowing the venue, Sonshine relocated to the Willmar Civic Center in 1987, where it has remained for the past 22 years, in part to the construction of the Willmar High School facility next door. Throughout its 26-year history, Sonshine has featured nearly every major artist in the Christian music world and remains true to its commitment to deliver the hottest artists as well as encourage young people to become or continue to be a life-long follower of Jesus. Poe and the original steering committee are still organizing and providing leadership for the Music Festival.

Sonshine belongs to the Christian Festival Association, a membership organization representing the premier Christian Music Festivals across the country, collectively hosting more than 1.4 million attendees nationwide.