The 9th annual FloydFest music festival is starting up in just a couple days (Thursday, July 22.) You can find the festival site off of MP 170.5 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The location is actually right past the Floyd County line so it’s technically in Patrick County but the spirit of the festival is entirely Floyd (it was created and is ran by Floydians.)

This four day (Thursday-Sunday) music festival has been getting bigger and bigger every single year since it began in 2002 and this year’s to be the biggest yet. There are many styles of music to be heard at FloydFest every year from traditional bluegrass to electronic dance music to everything in between. The focus tends to be on “roots” music but if that’s not your thing, there’s plenty of other music styles of music to keep you interested. There are many different stages going on at once most of the time. And for night owls, the Global Village stage is usually going strong well past midnight.

On site camping is included with all consecutive day tickets. Most campers are there for the full four days (four day passes are $140.) Camping can get quite crowded so you’ll probably want to get there as early as you can to set up your tent if you want to do this.

The headlining act this year is Levon Helm who is most famous as the drummer for The Band. Of course, those who know The Band also know that Helm sang lead vocals on some of their songs including “The Weight,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

Levon Helm will be performing Saturday night (he’s scheduled to go on at 9:15 PM.) Among the many other bands/artists performing this year are Old Crow Medicine Show, Railroad Earth, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, and Hackensaw Boys.

Along with lots of music to listen to, the festival also features many different vendors with lots of different styles of food and a large variety of different goods for sale.

Past festivals have featured bands/artists such as The Avett Brothers, Blues Traveler, Los Lobos, Ani DiFranco, David Grisman, Sam Bush, Donna the Buffalo, Xavier Rudd, and Yard Dogs Road Show.

Tags: Blue Ridge Parkway, Floyd County, Music