NOFO music festival will return with new lineup this July

The NOFO Rock and Folk Fest will return to the North Fork with a new lineup July 30-31, according to event organizer Josh Horton.

Mr. Horton announced this weekend in an e-mail to the Suffolk Times that Foghat, Commander Cody, Elvin Bishop, and John Sebastian will be among this year’s performers.

Southold Town was considering earlier this year an informal request to hold the event at Strawberry Fields in Mattituck, although it might still be held at Peconic Bay Winery, the site of last year’s festival.

Mr. Horton was at odds with the town for weeks leading up to last year’s festival, which took place without incident in July. The problem had been a discrepancy between the low number of attendees and vendors predicted on the permit application for the festival — 800 people a day — and the much larger throng predicted in public relations material sent by organizers to potential vendors. It put the expected crowd at “well over 15,000.”

The lower prediction turned out to be accurate. Mr. Horton maintained last year that the figure in the letter to vendors was a clerical error.

Last year’s event, which featured performances from Mountain and Richie Havens, led to a $5,000 donation to the East End Arts Council.