Lunsford Festival

The Lunsford Festival is an all-day festival celebrating regional music and dance traditions. The event is the second longest-running folk festival in Western North Carolina and was named in honor of Bascom Lamar Lunsford, who was a musician and folklorist who dedicated his life to collecting and promoting the music of the Southern Appalachians.

The festival brings out the region’s finest musicians, ballad singers, and dancers and it happens on the same day as the Madison Heritage Arts Festival, so Mars Hill is abuzz.