Orange County Blues Festival

The Orange County Blues Festival is an annual event held at Dana Point, California. Some of the artists to have appeared there are Canned Heat, Johnny Copeland and Etta James. Similar to the Topanga Canyon Blues Festival, it attracted in the same state, it attracted some of the major blues artists in the United States.

The festival ran from September 24 to the 26th. It was located at Heritage Park, Dana Point. The festival came about one day as a result of a discussion between Portland Blues Festival organizer John Vincent and resident of Dana Point, Jim Oakes. With the popularity of outside festivals increasing, it seemed like a good thing for Orange County. It was organized with the Portland Blues Festival as a model. In addition to the main stage for the headlining acts, another stage was seat up for school bands play. There was also a fine arts fair with between 35 and 50 stall booths. Some of the proceeds of the festival were to go to a youth recovery program. The promoter for the 1993 event was Eric Jensen.

In 1994, the organizers / partners of the festival were involved in a legal dispute. There were issues of the name rights of the festival, from the festival. Jim Oakes claimed he was the owner of the festival name. Former partners John Christian and John Dew were wanting to organize a rival blues festival as well.

The festival was set to go ahead in September 1994 but there was a conflicting event that stopped it. Jim Oakes had applied for a permit for the festival to be held from the 24th to the 25th but it was discovered by city officials that a wedding had been booked for the 24th and to be held at the park. City officials informed Oaks that the wedding had first priority. To complicate matters even further, another festival also named the Orange County Blues Festival was set to take place on October 1 at Doheny State Beach. The organizers of the Doheny State Beach festival were the former partners of Oakes.

It seems likely that artists and acts that included Chase Walker Band, a young 3 piece blues band were appearing at another venue in 2014 that was using the same name.

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