OXFORD — A smaller music festival featuring well-known bands will replace the Nateva Festival at the Oxford Fairgrounds in August, promoter Frank Chandler said.

Chandler, president of Nateva Festival LLC of Newton, Mass.,  announced April 1 that he had cancelled the 2011 show, in part because of slow ticket sales.

The scaled-down version will be the same weekend, Aug. 5-7, and will be called Camp Creek after the Max Creek Band, which was scheduled to return to Oxford this year for the Nateva Festival. The band will come to Maine as part of its East Coast tour on its 40th anniversary.

Other bands include Rustic Overtones, Sauce and Gypsy Tailwind.

“Max Creek was at Nateva last year and they love the fairgrounds,” festival publicist Jim Britt said. “Looks like it should shape up to be a pretty great weekend.”

Chandler had already signed a management contract with the fairgrounds owner, Oxford County Agricultural Society, for the Nateva Festival when he decided to pull the plug. No further negotiations are necessary for the much smaller festival, society treasurer Lance Bean said.

Environmental issues

Chandler said he was set to go, despite unresolved environmental permitting issues at the Pottle Road site. Those issues contributed to his decision to cancel the 2011 Nateva Festival, he said.

“He has use of whatever portion of the facility is available at the event time,” Bean said. “He is fully aware of the situation with DEP so he knows where we stand with DEP and the town of Norway.”

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has been working with the Agricultural Society for the past year to resolve the issue of a 15-acre hillside that was cleared and excavated last spring to the point of becoming unstable. The hillside is mostly on the Norway side of the fairgrounds.

The land was slated to be used for additional camping space for the 10,000-plus concertgoers. Nearly 15,000 square feet had been cut, stumped and filled before the permits were submitted.

A year later, the DEP is still trying to sort out who is responsible for the environmental damage.

“We are still assessing who the parties to the agreement should be,” said Mike Mullen of DEP’s Enforcement Division. “We are still gathering information but hope to have made our final decisions sometime next week.”

The voluntary consent agreement will be signed by all offending parties, according to DEP officials.

Mullen said the DEP has approved a wetland restoration plan submitted by the Oxford Fairgrounds Agricultural Society. The plan must be implemented later this spring.

Bean said the loss of Nateva this year will not be a total loss. The new festival will be a positive event for the society, he said.

“I guess you can say that (the Oxford County Agricultural Society) can’t lose money that it didn’t have to begin with,” he said. “If any revenues are recognized from that weekend, no matter what the event is called, it’s a positive. It may not be what we hoped for, but it’s better than nothing.”

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