Ladder to the Moon Festival at Ghost Ranch

All ON SITE LODGING AND CAMPING IS SOLD OUT!

See Ghost Ranch info, artist bios and festival FAQ on the Ladder to the Moon festival page.

Support:
- GhostRanchInfo@ampconcerts.org reaches the most people at once!
- Hold My Ticket: 505-886-1251
- Ghost Ranch: 505-685-1000
- AMP Concerts: 505-603-8134

September 9-11, 2022: An intimate concert experience under a full moon in the heart of the iconic landscape that inspired Georgia O'Keeffe.

In 1958 Georgia O'Keeffe painted a pueblo style ladder floating in the evening sky over her home at Ghost Ranch.

In 2021 AMP Concerts produced the first ever music festival at Ghost Ranch, two very special nights of music beneath the glorious full moon.

In 2022 AMP is excited to be back with a bold new name inspired by that moon and the connection to the place of O'Keeffe's work.

Three nights of incredible performances, food, poetry, hiking, art and more... all under the full moon in the heart of the landscape that inspired Georgia O'Keeffe!

Georgia O'Keeffe, Ladder to the Moon
Used by permission of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

TICKET TYPES AND PRICES

3-day pass: $230 + $33 in facility and service charges = $263 total
1-day ticket (Friday or Saturday): $115 + $17 in facility and service charges = $132 total
1-day ticket (Sunday): $50 + $10 in facility and service charges = $60 total
Kids 14 and under: free!

Add-ons (Available to purchase with your ticket or separately at a later date):

Friday & Saturday VIP Dinners from Open Kitchen: $260 (Friday) and $280 (Saturday), including all service charges

Open Kitchen and AMP Concerts invite you to two elevated and original food + drink experiences at Ghost Ranch amidst stunning red-yellow cliffs, under boundless skies during the Ladder to the Moon music festival:

Friday: "From Garden to Desert and Sky Above" Cocktail & Wine Pairing Dinner

Saturday: "Chef-Curated Open Hearth Feast" 

3-Day VIP Bar and Viewing Area, hosted by Tumbleroot Distillery: $150, including all service charges
Amenities include VIP Bar on the Agape Deck with access to VIP viewing area in front of the stage.

Click here to learn more, see the menus, and purchase tickets to these VIP experiences.

LADDER TO THE MOON FESTIVAL FAQ

We have a brand new web site coming up for the fest that will launch on Monday,  We know people have a lots of questions, so here is a temporary FAQ that will answer a lot of them.

LIMITED ON-SITE LODGING AND GHOST RANCH CAMPGROUND

Available first come, first serve starting on May 2 for AMP Member pre-sale.

Rooms and Ghost Ranch Campground sites will be password protected and available during the 3-day pass presale. 

These accommodations require a minimum 2-night stay (Friday & Saturday) and are managed by Ghost Ranch. Each person in a room or camp site must purchase a separate 3-day pass.

Click here for info on Ghost Ranch Lodging options.

Click here for info on established Ghost Ranch campgrounds (including some with hookups and electricity). NOTE: These camp sites are ONLY available from Ghost Ranch, NOT as a ticket add-on.

ADDITIONAL UNIMPROVED ON-SITE CAMPING

We have created additional primitive camping options for the festival weekend. These options are available as add-ons when you purchase your ticket.  These camp sites have a minimum 2-night stay.  Each camper must purchase a separate 3-day pass.

Available first come, first serve starting on May 2 for AMP Member pre-sale.

On-Site Car Camping: $90 3-day, $40 single day, maximum 4 adults per spot. (Size of car area: 30 x 30; for larger vehicles, contact tim@ampconcerts.org) Availability limited to three-day pass holders until May 16.

On-Site Tent Camping (The Hollow): $70 3-day, $30 single day, maximum 4 adults per spot. (Size of space is approximately 24 x 24.) Availability limited to three-day pass holders until May 16.

Click on the map to see a larger version

PERFORMANCE/EVENT SCHEDULE

Times subject to change. Show times are estimated. Updates will be made as the date draws closer.

Friday (5:00 PM Start):
Patti Smith & Her Band
Sharon Van Etten
Devendra Banhart 

Saturday (4:30 PM Start):
The Head and The Heart 
Angel Olsen
Watchhouse 
Digging Roots
Honeyhouse

Sunday (4:30 PM Start):
Indigo Girls 
Wet Leg 
Allison Russell 
Jade Bird 
Adia Victoria 

ABOUT THE MUSICAL ARTISTS

FRIDAY:

Patti Smith, born in Chicago and raised in South Jersey, migrated to New York City in 1967. Her extensive achievements as a performer, author, recording and visual artist is acknowledged worldwide.

Released in 1975, Smith's first recording, Horses, was inducted into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress in 2010 by the National Recording Preservation Board. Smith was awarded the prestigious 2010 National Book Award for her bestselling memoir, Just Kids, chronicling her deep friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and the evolution of their work. In 2007 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was honored by ASCAP with the Founders Award in 2010, representing lifetime achievement.

Her renowned band includes guitarist and author Lenny Kaye, drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, Tony Shanahan, and her son, guitarist Jackson Smith.

Sharon Van Etten has always been the kind of artist who helps people make sense of the world around them, and her sixth album, We've Been Going About This All Wrong, concerns itself with how we feel, mourn, and reclaim our agency when we think the world—or at least, our world—might be falling apart. How do we protect the things most precious to us from destructive forces beyond our control? How do we salvage something worthwhile when it seems all is lost? And if we can't, or we don't, have we loved as well as we could in the meantime? Did we try hard enough? In considering these questions and her own vulnerability in the face of them, Van Etten creates a stunning meditation on how life's changes can be both terrifying and transformative. We've Been Going About This All Wrong articulates the beauty and power that can be rescued from our wreckages.

Devendra Banhart emerged seemingly out of nowhere in 2002 with his first CD collection, Oh Me Oh My...The Way the Day Goes By the Sun Is Setting Dogs Are Dreaming Lovesongs of the Christmas Spirit, compiled by Swans frontman Michael Gira for his Young God label from homemade recordings the itinerant Banhart had amassed as he traveled the world. He was born Devendra Obi Banhart in Houston, Texas, but spent his childhood in Caracas, Venezuela; as a teenager, his family returned to the States, relocating in Southern California, where he soon became enamored of skateboard culture. Like Nonesuch label-mates Caetano Veloso and David Byrne, Banhart has embraced an astonishingly wide range of musical ideas, from folk to blues to the avant garde. 

SATURDAY:

Initially self-released in 2011, The Head And The Heart's self-titled breakout debut produced instant classics including "Rivers and Roads," "Down In The Valley" and "Lost In My Mind" (#1 at AAA) and is now Certified Gold. Their next two albums, 2013's Let's Be Still and 2016's Signs of Light, settled into Billboard's Top 10 albums chart, with Signs of Light securing the #1 position on the Rock Album Charts.

"Honeybee" became a fan favorite and breakout track from the band's fourth full-length album, Living Mirage, released to critical praise in 2019. The track has seen 100 million streams globally. The band's high energy live show has established their status as a touring powerhouse, having landed prime time mainstage slots at Coachella, Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.

Fresh grief, like fresh love, has a way of sharpening our vision and bringing on painful clarifications. No matter how temporary we know these states to be, the vulnerability and transformation they demand can overpower the strongest among us. Then there are the rare, fertile moments when both occur, when mourning and limerence heighten, complicate and explain each other; the songs that comprise Angel Olsen's Big Time were forged in such a whiplash.

Big Time is an album about the expansive power of new love, but this brightness and optimism is tempered by a profound and layered sense of loss. During Olsen's process of coming to terms with her queerness and confronting the traumas that had been keeping her from fully accepting herself, she felt it was time to come out to her parents, a hurdle she'd been avoiding for some time. "Finally, at the ripe age of 34, I was free to be me," she said. Three days later, her father died and shortly after her mother passed away. The shards of this grief—the shortening of her chance to finally be seen more fully by her parents—are scattered throughout the album.

By the time 2019 came to its fitful end, Andrew Marlin knew he was tired of touring. He was grateful, of course, for the ascendancy of Mandolin Orange, the duo he'd cofounded in North Carolina with fiddler Emily Frantz exactly a decade earlier. Still, every night, Andrew especially was paid to relive a lifetime of grievances and griefs onstage. After 2019's Tides of a Teardrop, a tender accounting of his mother's early death, the process became evermore arduous, even exhausting. What's more, those tunes—and the band's entire catalogue, really—conflicted with the name Mandolin Orange, an early-20s holdover that never quite comported with the music they made. Nightly soundchecks, at least, provided temporary relief, as the band worked through a batch of guarded but hopeful songs written just after their daughter Ruby's birth. They offered a new way to think about an established act.

Those tunes are now Watchhouse, which would have been Mandolin Orange's sixth album but is instead their first also under the name Watchhouse, a moniker inspired by Marlin's place of childhood solace. The name, like the new record itself, represents their reinvention as a band at the regenerative edges of subtly experimental folk-rock.

Digging Roots breathe life into songs from their land, Turtle Island, to raise their voices in solidarity with a global chorus of Indigenous artists, activists and change-makers. For over a decade, JUNO Award winners Digging Roots have traveled the world with a joyful message of resistance, celebrating Anishinabe and Onkwehonwe traditions of round dance and interconnectedness interwoven with the bedrock sounds of blues, soul and rock 'n roll.

The beating hearts of Digging Roots, founding duo ShoShona and Raven, have built a home for a talented community of players and collaborators including their son, drummer Skye Polson and Hill Kourkoutis. More than a band, Diggings Roots have taken their place at the frontline of the fight for equity and representation in the arts, with involvement in industry advocacy and organization, including the International Indigenous Music Summit and Ishkode Records, to empower arts communities worldwide.

SUNDAY:

Released in 1989, Indigo Girls' eponymous major label debut sold over two million units under the power of singles "Closer to Fine" and "Kid Fears" and turned Indigo Girls into one of the most successful folk duos in history. Over a thirty-five-year career that began in clubs around their native Atlanta, Georgia, the Grammy-winning duo has recorded sixteen studio albums (seven gold, four platinum, one double platinum), sold over 15 million records, and built a dedicated, enduring following. 

On their 16th studio album, Indigo Girls tell their origin story. Look Long is a stirring and eclectic collection of songs that finds Amy Ray and Emily Saliers reunited with their strongest backing band to date as they chronicle their personal upbringings with more specificity and focus than they have on any previous song-cycle.

Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers each wear a small gold necklace made by Hester: one that says Wet, and one that says Leg. Before last summer, those necklaces would have been cryptic to almost everyone else. However, a lot has changed since then. Wet Leg only released their debut single, "Chaise Longue," in June 2021, but its dry wit, "Mean Girls" nod and thumping indie-disco beat turned it into a runaway hit. They have already performed on Jools Holland and Seth Meyers, supported a slew of great acts from CHVRCHES to Idles, and having been ranked #2 in the BBC Sound of 2022 list, this year looks set to take them even further. Here are the pop stars you've been waiting years to discover. 

Allison Russell is an artist, activist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist of extraordinary power, talent and grace. A founding member of the acclaimed groups Our Native Daughters and Birds of Chicago, the Montreal native has emerged as a potent force among creative circles worldwide. On her three-time Grammy-nominated debut solo album, Outside Child, Allison shares the harrowing story of her abusive childhood in a deeply moving, unforgettable song-cycle of courage, empathy, hope and love. Outside Child topped the Best Of 2021 lists for a number of outlets, including New York Times, NPR Music, The Atlantic, Variety, Stereogum, Barack Obama's list, and more. In January 2022, Allison announced signing with publishing house Macmillan Flatiron for the release of her upcoming memoir. 

For Jade Bird, the second that lockdown lifted, there were no aimless summer days spent meeting friends in parks; no languorous evenings in pub gardens. She was headed straight back to Nashville to complete her second album, Different Kinds of Light—albeit via a strict two-week quarantine in Mexico City. She allowed herself to see no more of the Mexican capital than the local store and a leg-stretching walk around the block, not wanting to jeopardize any chance of being allowed into the U.S. to finish what she had started with Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb (Brandi Carlile, John Prine, Lady Gaga). The highlight of her stay in Mexico was literally her boyfriend pointing out a particularly gnarly spider he spotted as he had a cigarette on the balcony. "I move on really quick," Jade explains of the urgency she felt. "My partner always says there's no in between with me whatsoever, it's on or it's off. My feeling was: I'm in it, I love these songs, I want to sing. That's why we made heaven and earth move so I could do that in that moment."

Adia Victoria is a daughter of the South, a born and bred South Carolinian who now makes her home in Nashville, Tennessee. It is no surprise, then, that stories of the South find their way into her music, into the lyrics she pens and the chords she plays. It has been the case through her first two albums—2016's Beyond the Bloodhounds and 2019's Silences—and it remains so for third full-length effort, A Southern Gothic.