Wonderland Forest is more than just a forest: it has hiking trails, campgrounds, a wedding venue, and more recently, an outdoor music venue with various bands, food vendors, and other activities from across the United States.
Wonderland Forest exists because of a big team that focuses on the business side of managing grounds such as Wonderland Forest, as well as a focus on the environmentalism needed to run such a place ethically. One of these hard-workers is 2023 SUNY ESF graduate student, Shelby Martin.
Shelby Martin describes the atmosphere of Wonderland to be peaceful. In fact, their motto is “A Forest Peaceful Adventures.” All these peaceful adventures – from camping, hiking, all the way to concerts and tattoo trucks – are what makes this venue unlike any other in Upstate New York.
Another aspect of Wonderland that makes it stand out is that most attendees treat the concerts more like a festival, and dress up in costume for their events. “For TumbleDown and Biscoland there were a lot more extravagant outfits. From my experience, people love to go all-out and feel like themselves, when they can’t be themselves in the real world,” Martin explains.
Martin also encourages everyone to listen to music outdoors – one aspect of Wonderland that many venues can’t offer. “I love listening to music in any venue whatsoever … but there’s just something different about listening to music outside, sitting on the grass, dancing with your friends.”
As a Science and Forestry major, Shelby Martin paid close attention to a lot of the sustainability that goes into running a venue. She is happy with the outcome of the forest and how it has transformed into what it is today– a repurposing of a place that was already set up for human use, with the intention to enjoy the outdoors. She’s a big advocate for integrating humans into nature– so much of our time is spent indoors staring at screens, so any excuse to get outside is a good one. Martin says that she and her team worked to make sure that trails were safe for humans while taking special precautions to preserve the natural wildlife that already lived in the forest.
While environmentalism being integrated into music is a somewhat new idea, Martin and her team are doing their best to keep sustainability in mind as they move forward with the venue. Wonderland already has stonewater mitigation, which is used to guide water where to go, in order to lessen negative effects of hard rains on the already compact soil. Even with this and other sustainability measures, she already has plans in the works to make her venue more sustainable, such as composting, and adding detailed descriptions of what can and cannot be recycled. She also hopes to incorporate an educational aspect of the forest with signs to identify types of flora and fauna that make Wonderland unique.
Shelby Martin is part of a team of six to seven people, which branches out to an even larger team that makes the wheels turn. But she makes it clear that Wonderland is so much more than her and her coworkers: “But really, Wonderland relies on our locals and our fans that come see the music…” She emphasizes that while Wonderland is a beautiful adventure – the people that visit are what really makes it shine, as well as all the work she and her coworkers put in to make Wonderland what it is.
During the fall semester, Shelby Martin was taking nine class credits and six research credits– one must wonder how a full-time student can balance both academics and a job such as this one. Over the summer of 2023, she worked 60-80-hour work weeks, since that’s the best time to get “knit-picky” problems taken care of. Though she no longer works that same schedule – she cut her work to about 20 hours per week – she admits that it’s certainly difficult to be a student and balance that work with her job. Luckily, her team is very understanding of what it means to be a student, and the key to her balance was simply communication. “I told the whole team that [I had midterms that week] and everyone took something off of my plate for things that needed to be done around Wonderland…to make my plate a little lighter.”
When asked about vendors – they come from across the country with various food truck niches and other activities – Martin says that vendors actually contact Wonderland directly. In fact, there’s been so many that want to be involved, they’ve unfortunately had to refuse some due to the amount of applications. They particularly look for “a commitment to music as well as a commitment to their business.” They’ve had local vendors, but also vendors all the way from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and even Vermont.
Wonderland is so much more than a music venue. “We’re a campground, we’re an event center, we are a wedding venue. We are a multi-faceted space with 500 acres to work with and lots of trees and great space to do whatever, and be yourself.”
For more information on Wonderland, visit their website, or follow them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.
