The 2nd Annual John Hartford Memorial Festival
The road goes on forever & the party never ends at Bill Monroe's Bean Blossom Park & Campground In 15 Days.
Come and enjoy some Bluegrass, Newgrass, Jamgrass, HomegrownGrass, ColoradoGrass, or Anygrass, along with Old-Time, New Old-Time, Country, Western, & some Blues mixed in there someplace.
Ticket Information:
Online tickets can be purchased until 5-29-2012: All single days $30 & full festival tickets are $75.
Ticket prices after 5-29-2012 at the gate: All single day tickets $35 & full festival tickets are $90.
All online ticket sales will be entered into a data base that will be available at the gate so that you may receive wrist bands for the festival tickets you purchased. Tickets will not be mailed. We email all ticket purchasers a verification of your ticket purchase. If you should not receive one, please send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it requesting verification of your ticket purchase.
Children 12 & under are free. Pets are welcome but need to be kept leashed. Bring lawn chairs or blankets for the shows. They can be left at stage for all 3 days to keep your same spot. You can bring your own drinks & coolers to the shows, but there will be plenty of food and drinks available from vendors close by.
Festival tickets do not include camping. There is plenty of primative camping at $7 per night per person. You don't have to make reservations for primative camping. Camping information can be obtained at www.beanblossom.us or call the office at the 800 number below. The park has free showers & bathroom facilities. If you have an RV & would like to have water & electric, you can reserve a site by calling the park office at 800-414-4677. Golf carts will be available for rental.
Help:
If anybody is going to some concerts or shows in the next few weeks and could hand out some promotion cards for the festival, please drop me a line with your address and I can ship some out to you. Music stores and any other shops you frequent might also accept some to put on their checkout counter. I'm hoping that the word about the festival will get spread to many more people this year. You can email me at
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Commentary:
"Hey folks, here is a pretty new festival I'd like you to know about, pretty near to home, at the Bean Blossom IN music park. This is on the "don't miss it" list. We aren't booked there this year, but I am thinking I'll go just to check it out. In the spirit of John, this is a genre-stretching fest reaches from bluegrass to old time to folk to jamgrass and all fusions thereof, and some we haven't imagined yet. Several of our musician friends will be there, and many musician friends I haven't met yet. Likely to be round the clock jamming. 52 bands on 3 stages, camping, and very cheap price $60 for 3 solid days of music. 1000 visitors will ensure that it will happen again next year too. Please support if you can, cause we want John Hartford and his spirit to live on forever." (Wil Maring)
Q&A
Q - 1. What is the seating arrangement at the festival.
A - 1. For stage seating, you will need to provide your own chairs or ground cloth. Most people setup their chair or ground cloth as soon as they get there or get settled in at their campsite. It has been my experience that most people leave their chairs in place for the length of time they are at the festival. I have never heard of anybody having their chair stolen and I have seen some pretty high priced chairs left at the stage for the whole festival.
Q - 2. What about food and drinks.
A - 2. You are welcome to bring drinks & food to your chairs but there will be plenty of choices of food and beverages available from food vendors just a short distance from the main stage. Coolers can also be brought to your chair.
Q - 3. Can you easily walk from the parking lot and campsites to the stages.
A - 3. Just about all the locations you need to walk to wouldn't be more then a couple hundred yards. Most people can walk from one stage to any of the others in about 5 minutes. A lot of people like to bring their own golf carts. Golf carts will also be available to rent.
A while back I received a nice email from Thom Moore who is a huge fan of John Hartford. He composed a song that he titled "John on the River". He recorded it on an album titled "That Evening Sun", which you can find on cdbaby.com. Here is an excerpt from material written on the inside of the cd cover. Matt Combs, who played in John's stringband for awhile, is playing the fiddle on this song with Thom.
I was thinking of John Hartford one day and wondered how many folks who knew John's music might not have known about his other life as a licensed Steamboat Pilot. As Tony Ellis says it "when John was on the river he missed his banjo and when he was traveling around playing his banjo, he missed the river". The tune just seemed to roll off the fret board in an easy way. I thought it would be nice for Matt who played with John, to do a fiddle solo in this lament for him.
If you would like to listen to this beautiful song written and performed by Thom, click here.
Tribute to John Hartford"
I consider this to be the JHMF 2012 theme song.
Contributed to the festival by Ernie & Patti Hill.
WMV format MP4 format
As I was working on the Artists section of the website, I discovered that things weren't displaying right so I decided to try a different browswer. Everything started looking like it should. I have heard that there have been some problems with IE9. I now use Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. They both seem to work fine. I would highly recommend that you download one or both of them and use one or the other, while surfing the Internet. They also both seem to be a lot faster then IE.
We will be needing some volunteers at the festival. These can be fun & exciting jobs. We are looking for people who are dedicated to see this festival be successful and continue on in years to come. If anyone feels they can give some of their time during the festival & would like to learn more about volunteering, please contact Bob Riley at
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A special thanks to the Hartford family for setting this up to help support this festival.
Here is a link to a live show from the SPPS website.
John Hartford
Charlotte's Web
Rockford, IL 4/1/76
Larry Perkins - Trugrass - more - Country
Ticket Information
All online ticket sales will be entered into a data base that will be available at the gate so that you may receive wrist bands for the festival tickets you purchased. Tickets will not be mailed. If you need a verification of your ticket purchase, please send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it requesting verification of ticket purchase.
The Bill Monroe Music Park & campground is pet friendly. Pets should be kept on a leash. Golf carts will be available to rent. There will be a variety of food and merchandise vendors. Many of the performers will have CDs and other merchandise setup under a pavillion near the stage. Flush toilets, hot showers & a laundry facility are also available in the park. If you have any questions call the campground directly at 1-800-414-4677.
To send us a message please Click Here.
Links
Official Bill Monroe Festival Park and Campground Website
Official John Hartford Website
Steam Powered Preservation Society
John Hartford Documentary Project