
Photo by Kim Blackburn
Moonshiner's Ball 2016
After three years at the Berea venue HomeGrown HideAways, the fourth annual Moonshiner's Ball will move to a new location on a private farm in Estill County in 2017.
Citing a need for more space for their growing outdoor music festival, organizers of The Moonshiner’s Ball have announced a new location for the fourth annual event, which will take place May 19-21, 2017.
After three years at the Berea, Ky., venue Homegrown Hideaways, the festival will move to the privately owned Jenkin’s Farm in the Red Lick Valley area of Estill County, Ky., this spring. About an hour from downtown Lexington (Irvine is the county seat), the venue nearly doubles the potential turnout for The Ball, setting capacity at 2,000 with the potential to grow even more in the future (Homegrown Hideaways’ capacity is 1200, which includes the use of a neighbor’s field). The Red Lick Valley was previously home to The Red Lick Valley Bluegrass Festival for 37 consecutive years until the 2015 death of the festival founder Tracy Jenkins, thus ending the festival tradition.
The Moonshiner’s Ball hopes to bring excitement back to the farm, said festival founder Travis Young.
“We wanted to keep the feel of the ‘holler,’ the sense of being nestled into the Appalachian mountains – the clean air, the star-filled skies, the creek where kids can stomp and play,” said Young, who also plays banjo in the Lexington-based band Blind Corn Liquor Pickers, which serves as the organizing force behind the Ball. “At the same time, we wanted something a little larger. The Jenkins’ Farm allows us to take the next step in building what we hope will become Kentucky’s premier music festival.”
While some of the more notable reasons and benefits behind the venue change are the the need for additional camping and parking space for festival goers, an added bonus is that the new grounds will have increased cell service. Young notes that this is a major change not only for logistics and vendors, but for the safety and convenience of attendees as well.
The festival started in 2013 with a Kickstarter campaign created by the Blind Corn Liquor Pickers, who were looking to host “two days of moonshine-soaked indie rock, Americana and Bluegrass music.” While the initial model was more of a field party for the community that had built up around the Blind Corn Liquor Pickers’ 15 years of playing shows, bolstered by the artists they had met and partnered with along the way, the event has quickly has evolved into a staple event for central Kentucky fans of bluegrass, Americana, folk, indie rock and other genres. In years past, the festival has featured music performers that include Ben Sollee, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, Vandaveer, Daniel Martin Moore, Driftwood Gypsy, Moon Hooch, Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band and many more.
While the festival had an attendance of around 500 the first year, last year it exceeded 1,000, and Young feels the event would have likely sold out if not for the weather that weekend. (“We got absolutely hammered by rain on Friday,” he said.) The festival still has plenty of room to grow, with organizers presenting additional live music events at Lexington venues featuring local and touring acts in recent months, under the organizational umbrella of “Moonshiners presents.”
While the primary focus of Moonshiner’s Ball is to create a platform to showcase Kentucky artists alongside regional and national music acts, the festival also features spoken word artists, fire dancers, arts and crafts vendors, kids’ activities and more. This year’s event will feature three stages spread across the farm, and Young wants to see the growing festival continue to create a scene for collaboration and mutual support amongst artists of all kinds.
“We want to shine a spotlight on Kentucky artists, putting them side-by-side with higher profile national artists,” Young added. “We want you to leave The Ball having discovered your new favorite band.”
An initial line-up announcement for Moonshiner’s Ball 2017 is expected in January and the full line-up in early February.