Storyteller Overland Announces STO Fest: Where Overlanding Meets Live Music

Four days of live music, vehicles, and desert adventure in the high desert of Johnson Valley, October 15–18, 2026.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sept. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- There's a reason a campfire and a concert feel like the same instinct. Gather. Listen. Connect. Stay longer than you planned. Storyteller Overland has built an entire festival around that overlap.

STO Fest is a four-day gathering in Johnson Valley, California, built around overlanding, live music, and the outdoors. It grew out of the brand's community of vehicle owners, but the gate swings both ways — STO Fest welcomes anyone ready to say yes to their next grand adventure, whether they show up in a fully kitted rig or have never set foot off-pavement.

Overlanding and live music pull from the same crowd: people who go find it instead of waiting for it to come to them. STO Fest puts them in the same place, at the same time, for the first time.

Presented by Gibson Guitars and Mercedes-Benz, the festival features two bands each night on the Gibson Stage, Thursday through Saturday, with headline sets from Ozomatli, Blackberry Smoke, and The Struts, plus a special appearance from The Dusty Bunch, a musical collective made up of Storyteller Overland's own team members — including CEO, Neil Grimmer.

Thursday, October 15
Headliner Ozomatli brings three decades of Grammy-winning genre fusion blending Latin, hip-hop, funk, and reggae, rooted in Los Angeles. Opening the night is The Western States, a rising force in the LA country scene built for high-energy sets that span classic country, honky-tonk, and alt-country.

Friday, October 16
Southern rock mainstays Blackberry Smoke headline, fresh off their latest album Be Right Here and a #1 Billboard Americana/Folk chart debut. Blues-rock guitarist Jared James Nichols opens, pick-less playing style and all.

Saturday, October 17
Glam-rock powerhouse The Struts close out the weekend known for arena-sized hits like "Could Have Been Me" and "Body Talks." All-female Black Sabbath tribute act Black Sabbitch opens, fresh off their live album Unrest in the West.

"Our community has always known how to gather around a campfire, a trailhead, a hot meal after a long adventure," said Josh Ehren, Chief Marketing Officer of Storyteller Overland. "STO Fest just gives those connections a stage and a lineup. It's the same incredible people, the same reason we all got into this in the first place, we just added the live music."

Beyond the music, STO Fest runs full days of programming. Learning Labs give guests hands-on skills sessions all weekend. Vendor Village showcases gear, mods, and makers. Attendees can get behind the wheel with demo drives in Storyteller vehicles and LiveWire electric motorcycles, or meet the Mojave mini donkeys who call the high desert home. Food, water, showers, and restroom facilities are on-site all weekend. Campfires and conversations round out each night, the space where the community connections really happen.

STO Fest 2026 runs October 15–18 at Lasertown in Johnson Valley, California. Tickets and full event details are available at stofest.com.

About Storyteller:
Storyteller Overland is widely regarded as the world's most all-encompassing and highest quality overland vehicle manufacturer. Launched in 2018 by a dedicated group of automotive and outdoor enthusiasts, Storyteller has always believed that capability is only half the story — what matters most is how that capability lets its community live and experience life exactly the way they want to. That belief drives the mission: to inspire and equip a growing community of adventurers with the proper gear, resources, and mindset to "live free, explore endlessly and tell better stories." Storyteller is honored to serve its STORYTELLERS owners group, a diverse, kind, helpful, and inclusive gathering of rugged individualists drawn together by a shared belief that life's greatest luxury is saying "yes" to the next grand adventure. Based in Birmingham, Alabama, the Soul of Storyteller is the unique connection that exists between the stellar group of people who design, engineer, and build our vehicles and gear, and the incredible people who experience them.

Media Contact:
Summer Trammell
VP, Marketing Communications
[email protected]

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SOURCE Storyteller Overland