ROTHBURY, Mich. (WOOD) — Five years since Kevin Graves disappeared from the Electric Forest music festival in Rothbury, his parents say they have a hole in their heart.

“Sometimes I’ll be sitting there in the living room watching TV, and I’ll just start crying,” Gary Graves, Kevin’s father, told News 8 on Wednesday. “I’m not ashamed to admit it because I’m thinking about him, looking at his picture there by the TV, and I just say, ‘Where the hell could you be?’”

The family isn’t giving up hope that someone knows something about his disappearance.

“Whatever it takes,” Gary Graves said. “I don’t care if I go broke; I’m gonna keep trying my best.”

They recently helped put up a billboard right near the entrance to Electric Forest, clear for tens of thousands of people to see this weekend as the festival returns.

“We hope they see it and understand that we haven’t given up looking for him,” Kathy Graves, Kevin’s mother, said. “As long as we can go, we’re not gonna give up and we’re not going away.”

Kevin Graves was 28 when he went to Electric Forest for the first time in 2018. On July 1, the last day of the festival, he and his girlfriend got into an argument, causing him to leave the concert and return to his tent.

When she went to look for him, he was gone. He hasn’t been seen since.

The investigation was turned over to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, where he is from. Investigators combed the area, but nothing came up.

“You wake up in the morning thinking about him,” Gary Graves said. “You go to bed thinking about him. I dream about him.”

Five years later, Gary Graves believes that leads have dried up. They rarely hear from law enforcement.

“(An investigator) told us that he thought Kevin was deceased,” Kathy Graves, Kevin’s mother, said. “That was the last thing. Whether he is or not, we need to know.”

They’ve chosen to take matters into their own hands. When Electric Forest returned in 2019, the family passed out flyers to people entering the festival.

“A lot of these people come to this every single year; they come far from this Electric Forest,” Kevin Graves’s sister told News 8 in 2019. “And most of the people I’ve talked to — they know this case.”

They continued passing out flyers at Electric Forest in 2022. But after pushback from the festival, they opted to put up a billboard off US-31 this year.

Kevin Graves’s community back home thinks of him often.

“I have customers that still ask, ‘Have you heard anything?’” Gary Graves said. “Everybody’s always checking in with me even though I retired.”

The family also has a Facebook page, ‘Help Us Find Kevin Graves’, with more than 7,000 followers dedicated to finding him. They also keep posters on all their cars.

“We’re not going away,” Gary Graves said. “We’re not gonna take them down until we find out something. Somebody’s gotta know something.”

They say what made Kevin special was his kindness to those around him and his dedication to his family.

“He always called his mother every day,” Gary Graves said. “He called his sister every day. He never missed.”

The family said they don’t believe in closure because there’s never closure — they just want answers.

“Just don’t forget about Kevin, please,” Kathy Graves said. “I know there are a lot of people missing. We just need help. We’re doing all we can.”

If you know anything about Kevin Graves’ disappearance, please contact the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office or the Michigan State Police Hart Post. A $10,000 reward is being offered for any information leading to his whereabouts.