Tumbleweed Music Festival 2025 Wrapup

Although it seemed at times as if it was never going to happen, the 29^th annual Tumbleweed Music Festival was held as planned this past Labor Day weekend.

The weather cooperated this year, giving us warm but not furnace-like temperatures, no rain, and very little smoke.  We had several new Food Vendors, and a full slate of Craft Vendors and Community Group tables.

The crowd seemed to be up this year from last year’s attendance, and everyone seemed to really enjoy the music all weekend!

The Friday night “Expanding Horizons” concert opened the festival in fine style, with local band JAK leading off, the young men of Sugarbluff continuing strong (despite some technical glitches), Richland musician David Prince giving us a strong performance of his music with a local feel, and KT and the Love Notes closing out the evening with an absolutely lovely, inspiring, and happy set of songs.

Saturday kicked off early and bright, with vendor and stage setup going smoothly and to plan, no traffic hassles, and the crowd coming in eager to get the music going.

Saturday afternoon saw the performances of the eleven finalists of the Jane Titland Memorial Songwriting contest before the judging panel (more on this anon).  Saturday afternoon also saw, on the Dan Maher North Stage, a tribute to the late Dan Maher, emceed by his long-time friend Tom Rawson, and featuring many of his friends who had known and performed with Dan over many years.  Fittingly, the tribute concluded with Heidi Muller and Bob Webb leading a chorus of the other tributeers in an emotional performance of Heidi’s song Good Road.

The Saturday evening Tumbleweed Benefit concert was one of the better ones we’ve had.  A goodly-sized crowd were treated to an amazing opening performance of the incredibly skilled duo “The Geoducks,” two young men who have been playing and exploring music together for over half their lives. 

The winners of the songwriting contest were announced next:  first prize and the Tumbleweed Trophy (made, as always, by emcee Wes Weddell) went to Patrice Webb for her song Let’s Go Riding;  Second place went to Katie Fitz for her song Play Time; and third place AND People’s Choice went to Peter Rothbart for his song Play Time.  Patrice then performed her song, aided by long-time Tumbleweed family member (also a finalist this year) Brad Keeler.

First-time headliner but long-time Tumbleweed family member Deb Seymour came next, giving us songs of strong women, and finding humor in life’s situations.  The evening closed out with the triumphant return of beloved duo William Pint and Felicia Dale, who brought, as always, their “Music of the Sea,” including some numbers that were new to their repertoire.  This was a return because they had been scheduled to be headliners last year, but health problems prevented them from attending.  Always so good to have them back!

Sunday again dawned bright and clear, with the kitchen crew again providing breakfast to performers and volunteers alike, which was eaten in the renamed “Chris Mesford Kenoyer Hospitality Room.”  Chris had organized and run the hospitality service for all previous 28 Tumbleweed festivals, beginning with a barbecue grill under the South shelter, and growing into a mighty exercise in coordination that has become our highly-regarded service.  Chris passed of cancer in July, and a large sheet of paper was stationed in the dining room with plenty of pens for people to write their tributes and memories, which many did.  The paper, picture, and memorial page went to Tim Mesford, Chris’s husband of many years.

Closing out the festival were the traditional “Theme Concert,” emceed by Micki Perry.  During the concert, the guitar raffle drawing was held.  The guitar this year was a Sigma by Martin Dreadnought, owned and donated by Hank Cramer III!  It was won by Becky Smith of Richland.  The final event, as always, was the Contra Dance, which was quite well-attended:  57 people came to dance to the music of Bonna Damhsa (BON-na DOW-sa, “Dance Band” in Gaelic) with Joseph Erhard-Hudson calling.

We hope you enjoyed this year’s festival as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.  Would you please do us a favor and fill out one of our surveys to let us know how we did? 

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We are already beginning plans for next year’s thirtieth annual festival, but unfortunately, another Tumbleweed is not a sure thing.  We barely had enough volunteers at the festival this year to be able to do it, and we desperately need more people to take over some of the jobs on the planning committee that have had to be second- or third-hat jobs for some committee members.  Among these are:  handling traditional PR, Volunteer coordinator, social media, and more.  If you want to help make sure that we DO have another festival, please consider filling out a Volunteer form.  Just click the link below.

Volunteer

Hope to see you in the park next year!