Red Ants Pants Music Festival

Sarah Calhoun

Director(s): Sarah Calhoun, Nic Davis

In late July there’s something really special that happens in the Montana ranching community of White Sulphur Springs. At the Red Ants Pants Music Festival, folks from far and wide gather in a cow pasture for four nights and three days of music, community and awe-inspiring sunsets. It all started back in 2006 when Sarah Calhoun created Red Ants Pants—the first company dedicated to making workwear for women. A few years later, the non-profit Red Ants Pants Foundation was born in support of women’s leadership, working family farms and ranches, and rural communities. To raise funds for the Foundation, Calhoun hosted the first annual Red Ants Pants Music Festival in 2011. In the last four years, outstanding musical talent such as Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Taj Mahal, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Corb Lund and Charley Pride have played the White Sulphur stage. This year, we welcome Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Ryan Bingham, Lee Ann Womack, Keb' Mo' and many more! Proceeds from the festival go to the Red Ants Pants Foundation to support the Foundation’s community grant cycle, skills workshops and leadership conferences. This festival is 100% home grown and run by an incredibly dedicated crew of hard working staff. We are joined every July by dozens of friends and family that round out our 75 strong festival staff. Throw in 250 festival volunteers and this makes for a lot of hard work to pull off a pretty fantastic celebration that rises up much like a field of dreams, or an old-fashioned barn raising. So Red Ants Pants is more than a music festival. It’s a celebration of our hard-working, rural Montana way of life. Nice people, Montana-crafted food, drink and art are a given. We also feature agricultural and work skills demonstrations traditional to Big Sky country. When your legs get tired from dancing, you can learn about ranch horsemanship, blacksmithing, and timber skills. You can enter a beard competition, taste locally raised beef, or try to cut timber with a crosscut saw. By attending the festival, you can support a great cause, connect and celebrate with great people. This is a uniquely Montana festival that the whole family will enjoy. Attend for a day or camp out all weekend, there is plenty of room for everyone on the ranch. Join us! Come connect with good folks and celebrate rural Montana. Learn more at RedAntsPantsMusicFestival.com.