When the idea for Governors Ball Music Festival was born, one of its founders remembers drowning in waves of sympathy. “Everybody just gave us this look. This good luck, kid look,” said Tom Russell.

Born and raised in Greenwich Village , Russell is one of the people responsible for giving New York City a large-scale music festival to call its own. “We were so determined and so confident that we were undeterred by any sort of snarky comments or fake well wishes,” he went on. “We stuck to our guns and we stayed focused, and we took a series of calculated risks that were very, very calculated, and we pulled it off.”

It takes a lot of gall to invent a music festival from scratch, especially in early-2010s New York, where hipsterdom dominated the culture and seeing your favorite band at

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