Charleston Bluegrass Festival Tickets

I only went for the day. Parking was too far away. I have a back issue so it's hard to walk that far especially after being at the festival all day. It seemed a whole lot smaller than last year. The venue was dirt. Last year was grass (or weeds). In any case, the grass was better. Now there was golf carts to take us to and from parking. I don't like the stages being opposite and having to go between the 2. The band start immediately after the last band finished. And the band is sound checking during the last of the performance that was up. The first year at the Woodlands was the best, in my opinion. With breaks between bands and competitions. In my opinion, it's gone downhill each year. I like our little festival. This year was OK. The past years at the Woodlands were better. I did not go to the one in Awendaw because that was Easter weekend.

This festival is held outside of Charleston at a beautiful venue in the middle of a nature preserve. The line-up was very impressive, with a variety of bluegrass bands with many flavors, traditional bluegrass, cajun bluegrass, rocking' bluegrass, psychedelic bluegrass and unplugged bluegrass! There were generous options for food and drink, good security and family friendly.

Ok, the good……Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway. What an awesome band. The other acts on Friday were fine, but Molly and her band are just on another level. The bad….. the venue. The signage was horrible. There was one ambiguous sign at the first entrance to the Woodlands Preserve, and several cars took the wrong turn down a harrowing road. That could be improved. The other issue I have is that the headliner (Molly) didn’t take the stage until after 11:00 PM. Most of the crowd had already left. I find that to be disrespectful to the paying customers and the band. Who in their right mind thought that was a good idea? Sure, they were scheduled for a 10:45 start and the act before them ran obnoxiously late, but that was still a ridiculous time to start. I won’t ever go back until I see a schedule first. This could have been done far better.

Pros: Music variety, vendors, security at entrance and at event. Cons: They had not allowed for any handicap parking and parking space cleared in woods was a good distance from event entrance. Many people were unable to walk there and by second day only option they could offer was one golf cart to do intermittent shuttle service. Grounds where event held were loaded with multiple stumps and roots and uneven ground for walking due to pine trees. Huge tripping problem for those of us with mobility problems. No lights at night to light the way on dirt road from event to parking area. Left early both days due to fears of walking back at night.

The show had some really good musicians and we had a great time enjoying all the booths. The rain for the 3 stars is, we Ubered to the Friday even and at 11pm when the show was over we couldn't find any Ubers, taxis or even limos that would come pick us up. We were in a very bad spot and started walking the mile long gravel road hoping if we got to the end at the pavement we could catch a ride. After almost 2 hours we finally found someone that would give us a ride back to the hotel. The event had a description that Ubers would be available when in fact after the show there was not.