The press release today from the city substantiates the rumor that Raleigh is the new home for the World Bluegrass Festival from 2013-2015. I think this clearly shows Raleigh is coming up through the ranks as a destination city for conventions of all types. To put it in perspective the International Bluegrass Music Association sees this event as the Grammy’s for the bluegrass genre of music. This is the first change in venue since 2005 when the event moved to Nashville, TN. All things being equal this may not be on same stage as a major awards show but if you are able to take a music event out of Nashville you’ve done pretty well for yourself would be my guess.
Having attended the Old Fiddler’s Convention in Galax, VA a couple of times I am looking forward to seeing how Raleigh takes on the task of opening our doors to an additional 16,000 people that may be in attendance. This should have downtown packed for the better part of a week. I am also curious to see who shows up – this is a large event and I’m sure a lot of people like myself will be interested in seeing what’s going on and venturing into the crowd. I might be wrong but I am guessing this will be entertaining if you just go to people watch and wander through the crowd.
So here we go – I hope we get it right. The only question now is which is the bigger event – the NHL All-Star game, NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs or the World Bluegrass Festival. Or am I missing another large event that came to Raleigh? Let me know what you think and I’ll post the Fiddler’s Convention pics tonight.
UPDATE – Pictures of the Galax Fiddler’s Convention 2005. BobG made an excellent correction to this post – I meant to say the biggest event after St. Patrick’s Day. All apologies.
I seem to remember something about a large parade in mid March each year. My memory on that is kinda hazy though… no idea why.