Festival of the Bluegrass
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Festival of the Bluegrass, located in Lexington, Kentucky, is the oldest bluegrass music festival in the bluegrass region of Kentucky. The festival takes place the first full weekend of June each year. The Festival of the Bluegrass helped shape the early bluegrass festival culture.
The Cornett family of Georgetown, Kentucky, began the festival in 1974 with The Festival of the Bluegrass, which was named by Raymond McLain, Sr. The first festival stage was a farm wagon with a tarp for shelter. The fans also used a tarp as shelter from the terrible thunderstorms the first day of the festival. This first festival was held on Walnut Hall Farm, which is now the Kentucky Horse Park just on the north side of Lexington. Later the festival was moved to Masterson Station Park, a Lexington city park, for initially two years. However, the festival did not move back to the Horse Park until the seventeenth year, by which time the Horse Park was fully developed with an excellent campground. The annual event is a traditional bluegrass festival dedicated to preserving this unique form of music. As of 2006, the festival consists of three stages of music and incorporates a music camp designed to teach bluegrass music to school age children.
