Each year we invite a handful of new songwriters to play our festivals along with our many returning songwriters. Our Songwriters are recruited at other festivals, by reputation, attending live shows, referrals, our annual songwriting contest, and direct inquiries. We have filled our songwriter lineups for 2024 and are not currently soliciting songwriters for future festivals.
Two type of songwriters perform at our festivals, Hit Songwriters & Rising Stars.
Hit Songwriters write primarily for the country music world. Invited hit songwriters have written one or more hit songs on the billboard charts. Past performers include, Brett Jones, Gary Nicholson (Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame), Leslie Satcher, Wynn Varble, Kostas (Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame), Tony Lane, Sunny Sweeney, Karen Staley, Randy Montana, Erin Enderlin, Angela Kaset, Chuck Cannon, Gretchen Peters (Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame), Billy Montana, Erin Enderlin and Even Stevens (Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame) among others.
Rising Stars are professional singer-songwriters that play in the pubs and restaurants during the festivals. They perform the majority of the shows on a combination of days—Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. These shows are in a songwriter round format with two to three songwriters. They play in a different venue with different songwriters each day.
Many of our Rising Stars are discovered at our Rocky Mountain Songwriting Contest. Past winners include Michelle Rivers, Reese Sullivan, Dallas Remington, Goldpine (Ben & Kassie Wilson) and Daniel Nierhoff, all regular Rising Stars at our festivals. The winner of our annual contest receives an automatic invitation to return to the Red Lodge Songwriter Festival the following year as a Rising Star and the top five get strong consideration to play our other festivals. We will begin accepting songs for the 2025 contest on October 1, 2024.
Thank you for your interest.
- Mike Booth – Executive Director
- Rocky Mountain Songwriter Festivals
- P.O. Box 830
- Red Lodge, Montana 59068
