TULSA – For the second straight year, Tulsa sibling pop band Hanson has canceled its hometown Hop Jam Beer and Music Festival due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Grammy-nominated trio – brothers Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson – announced the cancellation of the spring 2021 event in a letter addressed to beer and music fans at www.thehopjam.com.
The letter also includes an expected return date for the festival: May 22, 2022.
“The Hop Jam has always been about bringing people together to celebrate the incredible convergence of great craft beer and music. With thousands of you joining us very year from near and far, YOU have helped to make The Hop Jam the largest craft beer and music festival in Oklahoma, and one of the premier craft beer events in the nation,” the letter reads.
“With an event of this scale (and Awesomeness!) we also recognize that we have to look at maintaining your health and safety at a larger scale. With this in mind, we have made the hard decision that The Hop Jam will not take place this year as planned. We are working still on ways the Hop Jam can promote and celebrate the craft beer and music community in 2021, while focusing our excitement and energy on returning 22nd May 2022.
“We are so proud of the community we have built with The Hop Jam starting in 2014 and we know that the best is still yet to come.”
Over their first 25 years as the band, the Hanson brothers have made a significant mark in music. Starting in 1992, they spent their first five years building a fan base as an independent band in their hometown of Tulsa, where the sibling trio is still based.
After signing a record deal, Hanson saw a meteoric rise with the 1997 international smash single “MMMBop,” from the band’s debut album “Middle Of Nowhere,” followed by consecutive top 40 singles. A long line of hits, five more studio albums, multiple Grammy nominations and more than 16 million album sales followed.
Over its second decade, the band charted its own course, running an independent label while maintaining a global fan base.
In 2013, the band launched Hanson Brothers Beer, premiering their new venture with a signature Pale Ale, Mmmhops, and in 2014 they launched The Hop Jam, which boasts 40,000 attendees annually.
“The festival was born with the idea of bringing together two things we’re passionate about, and I think what we backed into is two really great fan bases: music fans … and then the craft beer community, which has been growing,” Taylor Hanson told me in a 2019 interview.
“We’ve been very driven each year to grow and to stretch and to really innovate any way we can with the festival and make sure it’s pushing boundaries. But I think the overall success is really just that we’re a part of something that resonates. We’re part of, I think, a movement to return to downtown with energy and business and the vision for our city and our state and also the growth of craft beer and what that’s doing across the country. We were able to, I think, crystallize those things in a form that really resonates, and there’s a lot of passion to tap into, which we’re really proud to be a part of. And we feel like is going to build for a long time.”
The Hop Jam is billed as Oklahoma’s largest beer and music festival. The 2020 Hop Jam also was canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak.
In addition, Hanson took to Facebook today to announce that its Hanson Day hometown fan gathering will be reimagined this year due to the pandemic.
Features Writer Brandy “BAM” McDonnell covers Oklahoma’s arts, entertainment and cultural sectors for The Oklahoman and Oklahoman.com. Reach her at bmcdonnell@oklahoman.com, www.facebook.com/brandybammcdonnell and twitter.com/BAMOK. Please support work by her and her colleagues by subscribing at oklahoman.com/subscribe.