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Thousands will flock to Winfield for the annual September festival I can't, I'm going to W
Winfield
By Katy Humpert, Jayplay writer
Your shoes are caked with mud. Your hair smells of campfire and other drug-related smoke
- a stench that will take days to wash out. Across the campground, you hear cheers as someone plucks away on a banjo. You skip your shower to get to the noon show on Stage Two, even though you haven't showered for days. You are at the
Details
Where: Winfield, Kansas – a three hour drive from Lawrence down the Kansas Turnpike
When: September 14 to 18
How much: $85 for the full festival, $65 for Friday/Saturday,
$35 for a single day
For tickets call (620) 221-3250 or buy them at the gate.
Walnut Valley Festival, and you don't want it to end.
When given the chance to sum up the festival in his own words, Ethan Nuss says, "Winfield is all about getting wild wasted on cheap whiskey while kicking up dirt to the tune of a fast fiddle."
Nuss, Salina senior, is one of many KU students who share a love for that blessed event that comes just once a year. For people the world over, the festival becomes not only a celebration of the bluegrass tradition, but also a place to hear diverse types of music, learn the true meaning of campfire jams and to experience what many Winfield natives refer to as the world's biggest family reunion.
A smorgasbord of sound
While the title seems to specify the
seems to specify the genre of music for the festival, in reality, any genre of music can be heard during the fourday event.
Barry Patton, better known to festival-goers as "Bones," has attended or performed at every festival since its inception in 1972. Patton says the widespread appeal of Winfield comes from being a music festival, not just a bluegrass music festival.
Patton became legendary in Winfield for his extraordinary ability to play the bones, a percussion instrument with primitive roots. He's arguably one of the greatest bones players in the world today and he played them as part of an old-time band in the recent season finale of HBO's Deadwood. Bones is just one of the many less-than-mainstream instruments heard at the festival.
Tommy Emmanuel, Grammy-nominated guitarist and Australia native, began playing at the festival in 2000. His style, which ranges from aboriginal to rock 'n' roll, is another special addition to the event.
Gabe Krieshok, Shawnee Heights senior, saw Emmanuel perform at last year's festival and says, "Honestly, he is the best musician I've ever seen in my life."
Campground jammin'
The real fun to be had in Winfield is in Pecan Grove. This section of the Cowley County Fairgrounds represents the majority of the camping area and is essentially the pulse of the festival. It's much more than boozing, although sneaking alcohol into the dry campground is part of the fun.
Rex Flottman, one of 12 organizers of the festival, says one of his favorite memories from Winfield is the year he and his friends commandeered a golf cart at 3 a.m. They spent hours driving to different campsites in Pecan Grove, listening to music and hanging out with whoever was still awake. He says what really makes Pecan Grove so incredible is that there is no sense of time. Flottman says music is playing 24 hours a day.
The festival also plays host to the National Guitar Flat Pick Championship, the International Finger Style Guitar Championship and many more nationally recognized contests.
Flottman says that with all of these
competitions, you have to assume that Winfield becomes home to at least 200 of the top guitar players in the world, most of whom are probably sitting around a campfire in Pecan Grove, waiting for someone to take a seat and start jamming.
Bluegrass or bust
For many festival goers, dreams come true in Winfield.
Flottman met his childhood idol, Tom Chapin, while working at the festival.
Chapin - a Grammy-award-winning folk singer - has been a regular since the late 1980s.
Patton jammed at his campsite with now-famous country stars like Alison Krauss and Nickel Creek.
What is extraordinary about the festival is not necessarily the amount of musical talent present, but the closeness of everyone who attends.
Chapin says he continues to come to the festival because it's become a reunion of friends and fellow musicians.
Emmanuel says the "sheer happiness of everybody" is what makes him return year after year. He says that nowhere else in Kansas can 20,000 people come together annually and feel like family.
From Left: Tommy Emmanuel, Barry "Bones" Patton, outdoor scene at Walnut Valley festival, Tom Chapin. Above: Main stage at Walnut Valley Festival 2002. Photos courtesy: Tommy Emmanuel, Barry Patton, Rex Flottman, Tom Chapin