Mountain Dance and Folk Festival

August 3-5, 2017
Check out the nation’s longest running folk festival. The 90th annual edition of this three-day event showcases the best of the region’s traditional and old-time musicians, ballad singers, mountain dance groups and cloggers. Since 1928, mountain fiddlers, banjo pickers, dulcimer sweepers, dancers, balladeers and others have come to enjoy themselves “along about sundown” the first weekend in August at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival for plenty of authentic bluegrass music. Performers at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival take to the stage at the Mission Health/A-B Tech Conference Center (16 Fernihurst Dr. Asheville, NC 28801) at 6:30 PM each evening.  

Bascom Lamar Lunsford founded the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival as a means for people to share and understand the beauty and dignity of the Southern Appalachian bluegrass music and dance traditions that have been handed down through generations in western North Carolina. He saw the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival grow to be the oldest gathering of its kind in the nation and it continues in this way, a platform for the talented of the high country lying between the Great Smoky and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Since 1928, the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival has served a crucial role in raising awareness and understanding of the vitality and importance of Southern Appalachian culture throughout the region, nation and world. Bascom Lunsford’s mission was to present the finest of the Appalachian ballad singers, string bands and square dance teams for education and entertainment. The songs and dances shared at this event echo centuries of Scottish, English, Irish, Cherokee and African heritage found in the valleys and coves between the Great Smokies and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Lunsford’s was the first dubbed a folk festival, and he later consulted with many communities across the country interested in organizing similar festivals.

Tickets on sale in advance on their Web site or at the door starting at 5:30 PM if seats remain. You can also buy at July dates of Shindig on the Green. Adult $22; Children 12 and under $12; Three night package: Adults $60. 

This is a fundraiser for Shindig on the Green, a free outdoor music festival on Saturday nights during the summer in downtown Asheville.