JK McKnight grew up on the edge of Tyler Park in Louisville and says that it was the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed parks system that was his inspiration for the Forecastle Festival. Olmstead designed most of the parks in Louisville as well as New York City’s Central Park.

“My parents were very liberal,” says JK, “and let me go to the Tibetan Freedom Festival in D.C. when I was 17 years old. I also grew up on Lollapalooza, so Tyler Park was just calling to me to start something there.” 

Now known internationally as the only festival to be equal parts music, art and activism, Forecastle started almost as a young boy’s community theater project. JK explains, “I started the festival in 2002 by myself walking up and down Bardstown Road with a handful of flyers to get people to come. I had some local bands and maybe 100 people showed up. But the next year, I had an art curator as well as tables set up with local environmental and activist groups.  And that is when the vision really started to come through. I saw all these demographics of people coming together…an 18-year-old might show up for the music and start talking to a 60-year-old who had come to see the art. It was kind of emotional for me. By 2004, Al Gore’s people were there.”

The festival staged one memorable year in Cherokee Park and is now offered at the Riverfront Belvedere. As well, the festival draws national music acts but JK’s commitment to the triumvirate vision is steadfast. . . . "If I have 20 bands,” he says, “then I have 20 visual artists and 20 activist groups represented. Each has equal weight.” 

Forecastle is also now the centralized festival for 10 regional cities and draws both talent and audience members from the surrounding area. During the festival Louisville serves as the cultural epicenter for what those cities and resources have to offer. “People don’t realize,” JK adds, “that there are 10 million people living right in this vicinity.”