Blue Ridge Folklife Festival

Since 1973, Ferrum College has been host to the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival. Every year near the end of October, thousands of people converge on the normally sleepy hamlet of Ferrum Virginia to get a glimpse of the past.

The festival brings together musicians and moonshiners, craftspeople and cooks, hot rodders and horse handlers, and a host of folk artists and artisans in a celebration of Blue Ridge heritage. A major venue on the Crooked Road Music Trail, the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival is a family event like none other.

Some of the most popular exhibits of the festival deal with working animals. Visitors to the festival will get a chance to see these animals in action. Draft horses will compete in a pulling contest, jumping mules will test their leaping skills, and herding dogs will match agility with sheep. Last but not least, Coon dogs will race after a scent across the campus pond and compete in treeing competitions.

Children visiting the festival can spend hours playing the games that their parents, grandparents and even earlier generations played before them. Long before computers and video games, the children of the Blue Ridge played games such as tug-of-war, sack races, wheelbarrow races, three-legged races, ring toss, needle-in-a-haystack, just to name a few. All of these games and many more will be available in the children’s area during the festival.

The Blue Ridge Folklife Festival offers an unmatched market of mountain folk crafts. Artisans will be demonstrating old-time hand skills from tatting and basket making to blacksmithing and dough tray carving. The festival is best known for presenting artisans who make and sell crafts not found on the regular craft show circuit.

This year’s Blue Ridge Folklife Festival takes place October 25, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. rain or shine. Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for children and senior citizens.