The Venue
The Return of the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival
Twenty years after the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival won the award for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) Event of the Year in 2006, the festival is returning to the Boston area in 2026 after having been on hiatus since the COVID pandemic. This year, the Boston Bluegrass Union’s (BBU) flagship event is not only…
Colorado’s Midwinter Bluegrass Festival Celebrates 40 Years
In most of the Bluegrass world, the beginning of festival season generally happens sometime around Memorial Day. In northern Colorado, however, everyone knows that it begins over President’s Day weekend. That’s when the Midwinter Bluegrass Festival takes place. Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, once again the Midwinter Bluegrass Festival takes over a hotel in…
Blue Ox Music Festival
Finds Success and Fills a Niche By all measures, the Blue Ox Music Festival is a young musical gathering. Now going into its 12th year, the festival will return once again on June 25-27, at the Pines Music Park in beautiful Eau Claire, Wisconsin, located between Chippewa Falls and Osseo. The gathering is more proof…
Festival Innovation & Evolution
Written by Dale and Darcy Cahill Over the past thirty years of attending bluegrass festivals, Dale and I have witnessed festivals evolving beyond rough camping and one-stage events. Some of the innovations grew out of attendees’ suggestions and others from promoters trying new ways to attract larger audiences and add even a small amount of…
2026 Festival Guide
United states Alabama Bluegrass at the Station APRIL 23-25, 2026 University Station Rv Resort 3076 Al Highway 14 W, Auburn, Alabama 36832 570-721-2760 bluegrassatthestation.com Arkansas Spring Mountain View Bluegrass Festival March 12-14, 2026 1032 Park Avenue, Mountain View, AR 72560 501-350-9676 mountainviewbluegrass.com Fall Mountain View Bluegrass Festival November 12-14, 2026 1032 Park Avenue, Mountain View, AR 72560 501-350-9676 mountainviewbluegrass.com…
Billy Strings at the IMBA Conference 2025
Introducing Billy Strings as the keynote speaker for the IBMA World of Bluegrass, Executive Director Ken White called him a “generational talent” and acknowledged the kind of “watershed moment” that comes along every twenty years or so, putting “bluegrass music in the center of popular culture.” Along with such phenomena as Will the Circle Be…