Event

9th Annual Oly Old Time Festival

The Arbutus Folk School presents the 9th annual Oly Old Time Festival! Enjoy the music and dance traditions of the southeastern US that include banjo and fiddle-driven Appalachian stringbands, square dancing, and Cajun music through four days of concerts, dances and free workshops beginning on Thursday, February 16th and continuing until Sunday, February 19th.

This years festival will showcase the gifted and intuitive music and visual art of Anna & Elizabeth (Virginia), as well as the vintage Americana tunes and humor of The Canote Brothers (Seattle). The event will also feature two youth stringbands: The REDS and The Bow Weevils the latest bearers of these traditions. Music for dances will be by Portlands Uncle Wiggily, and the Dibble Street Stringband from Seattle. The Cajun band Touloulou will serve up old-time style Louisiana French music for latenight two-stepping. All experience levels are welcome at the dances and seasoned callers will ensure that everyone can join in on the fun.

A hallmark of the festival is the robust program of free workshops. Skilled musicians and performers cover all the primary old time instruments, old styles of singing, square dance calling, and dancing.

A subset of workshops is geared towards kids and there is an all-ages dance on Saturday thats an annual tradition for many families. Professor Banjo will also be on-hand for an all-ages entertainment session.

Tickets can be purchased for individual evening events. The Thursday night kickoff square dance is $5. On Friday night, a $20 ticket gets you access to the main concert (3 acts) and a square dance. On Saturday, the big square dance and the Cajun dance can both be accessed for $20. All tickets are available at olyoldtime.org.

As always, kids under 12 attend for free. So do our volunteers. If you are interested in volunteering, please email volunteer@olyoldtime.org