Omaha native, singer-songwriter, and music educator Madeline Reddel is taking her Garden Party festival out of her backyard and moving the event to Sonny’s at Aksarben
The free festival will feature an all-women-fronted lineup on Mother’s Day weekend. The artists announced include Abby Holliday from Nashville, Tennessee, as the headliner, Autumnal from Fort Collins, Colorado, Keo & Them from Wichita, Kansas, Brooklyn, New York’s Honey Marmalade, Ione, who used to live in the area and now lives in Chicago, and Peachy Beaches, Twin Pages, Lyriq Lashay, and Grace Lundy, all from our area. The event will run from 2-11 p.m. on May 10.
Garden Party has been taking place in Reddel’s backyard.
“I started Garden Party in 2022 as a fun party, and it has morphed into a DIY fest,” she said. “Now it is breaking from DIY to a little bit bigger stage at Sonny’s, which is exciting. I am a musician in town and also a promoter. I have connections with many musicians in Nebraska, so it is fun to book and run a festival with that.
“I was really concerned at the last Garden Party, as it really outgrew the garden, which is ironic. It was in my backyard at the house I was renting—just an absolutely lovely space. But I was getting quite concerned about safety and the cost; there are no sponsors, so people had to pay. It was all kind of word of mouth, which was lovely, but I just wanted people to be safe at the end of the day.”
Reddel was born and raised in Omaha and studied music education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She ran the Jazz in June live music program in Lincoln in 2021 and then returned to Omaha to teach choir at Marian High School.
“That is when I started to think about music education and live music, uplifting young women’s voices, and working with young women,” she said. “I have always loved music festivals.
“That does help a lot when promoting my own shows; just a lot of experience over the years of booking myself. Booking myself out of Nebraska was a good skill that I learned last year when I performed in Brooklyn and Montreal. That was a really great experience of what the real world is like when you are booking yourself and going on a little tour. This year, Garden Party is expanding to local and regional artists, so for the first time, I am booking people outside of Nebraska to come in, and that has been really good—dipping my toes into working with agents and artists who are not from here.”
The area has had another woman-fronted festival the past few years at Falconwood Park called GRRL Camp.
Reddel discussed the mission for Garden Party.
“It’s really to celebrate women musicians in Nebraska and now the Midwest,” she said. “It’s kind of cool that there are lots of developing music festivals, specifically in Nebraska, that are all women’s music festivals. I’m friends with Shannon (Claire), who runs GRRRL Camp; she’s been so supportive of me, and I’ve been so supportive of her. So it’s really cool to see interest and demand for all-women spaces and music festivals. Just my career history and background—I’ve worked with young women at Marian and volunteered for years at Omaha Girls Rock. I have kind of always been drawn to play with women musicians, and I’m a woman musician, so it’s just kind of a projection of what I want the world to look like.”
She can thank another Omaha musician for the connection in the Aksarben area at Sonny’s.
“My friend Keith Roger, who goes by Ketrho, pitched Garden Party to Noddle Group a little bit without me knowing. He was like, ‘By the way, I pitched your music festival, and they want to do it.’ It was just really nice of him to think of me, my vision, and be an ally and promoter of my vision without me pushing that,” she said. “So that was really lovely of him. I have met with Noddle Group, who are a lovely group of people, and they supported my vision from day one. So we’re trying it out—having the festival be free, trying it at Sonny’s bar with that stage, and we’re going to see how it goes. I am super excited.”