Cheers to the third Ozark Moonshine & Music Festival
Call it the little festival that could.
For the third year in a row, the Ozark Moonshine & Music Festival, sponsored by Petit Jean Electric Cooperative, brings the “pickin’, sippin’, dance-hall skippin’” to Van Buren County Nov. 1 and 2.
The two-day event is a unique mixture of country and bluegrass music, along with the liquid wares of Arkansas distillers — including Little Rock’s Rock Town Distillery, Newport’s Postmaster Distillery and Helena’s Delta Dirt Distillery.
The festival will also feature arts and crafts vendors and food trucks. Signature cocktails and beer will be available for purchase at the bar, with regular tastings at the Distiller’s Expo.
In addition, expect chain saw carving, blacksmithing and archery. There will be educational exhibits and historic reenactments, along with guests from Discovery Channel’s “Master Distiller” and “Moonshiners.”
The big change for the festival this year comes with a switch in locations from a shopping center parking lot in Fairfield Bay to the Van Buren County Fairgrounds in Clinton.
Festival CEO Ginger Simpson doesn’t hide the festival’s desire to grow as it continues. Organizers knew they had something when approximately 6,000 traveled to Fairfield Bay and passed through the gates the first year. Attendance last year surpassed 7,000.
“Our vision is by 2027 to be the largest live music festival in the state,” Simpson says. “We had 25 craft vendors last year, and this year we have 57. Our number of food trucks will increase as well.”
Not all festivals that sprout up in Arkansas are as dedicated as the Ozark Moonshine & Music Festival, which is established as a nonprofit and conducts outreach programs throughout the year. Children’s Advocacy Alliance (CAA) is the festival’s main charity focus, raising funds and awareness of CAA’s mission to help “neglected and abused children in central Arkansas.”
The music acts for the 2024 festival corresponds to the growth it has experienced. There will be two stages occupied with acts playing throughout both days. Country hitmakers Lonestar, seller of 10 million plus records and Country Music Association (CMA) winners, headlines. Simpson notes that Lonestar’s stage is large enough to be trucked in by an 18-wheeler. Other festival acts are concentrated in the bluegrass genre, including Arkansas band The Gravel Yard Bluegrass Band, a “fusion of old-school bluegrass and soulful country.”
Distillers will be sharing what they know and make during the festival, and organizers don’t want the history of moonshine in Arkansas to pass by without comment. They dedicate part of the festival website to a modest history lesson about the Prohibition Era and note that the homemade moonshine and moonshine makers who had to hide from the law are “part of Southern culture.”
To drive the point home, visitors to the festival get a chance to play a game that mimics the old cat-and-mouse criminal and police chase of a bygone era.
At the festival gate, attendees will be given the option to attend the event as a “Bootlegger” or as a “Revenuer.” Purchasing a Revenuer’s badge ($5 directly benefitting CAA) ensures you will not be sent to “Bootlegger Jail” at any point during the festival. If you are not wearing a Revenuer’s badge, however, you take your chances of being identified as a Bootlegger and sent to “jail,” where donations of “bail money” benefitting CAA will be demanded for your release.
Why take a chance? Buy yourself a badge, so you can fully enjoy the “pickin’, sippin’, dance-hall skippin’” without lookin’ over your shoulder for the long arm of the law.
The Ozark Moonshine & Music Festival takes place at the Van Buren County Fairgrounds in Clinton from 1-10 p.m. Nov. 1 and 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
Nov. 2. One-day festival passes cost $45-$60. Two-day festival passes cost $85-$100.
Tickets are available at the gate or online at ozarkmoonshinefest.org. For more information, call (501) 546-4007.