You know you’re at a pretty special event when the Avett Brothers show up unannounced.
By the morning of Saturday, April 25th, the 38th annual MerleFest had already offered up two days of uncommonly gorgeous weather, lawn games, fair food, and some of the best music on the planet.
Over Thursday and Friday numerous acts had brought their contributions and laid them at the audience’s feet. Charles Wesley Godwin’s gritty sentiment. Sister Sadie’s solid instrumental prowess and powerhouse vocals. Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper’s dazzling technique. The contagious joy of The Infamous Stringdusters, Molly Tuttle, and Scythian. Old Crow Medicine Show selling old time music and having fun doing it, with a carnival barker’s patter and a twinkle in their eyes. Jontavious Willis and Lamont Landers laying down the blues. MerleFest stalwarts including Donna the Buffalo, Jim Lauderdale with the Game Changers, Pete Wernick, Mike Compton and Joe Newberry, and Peter Rowan with a star-studded Walls of Time Band reminding everybody what MerleFest is all about.
But there was more to come, and everybody knew it.
Saturday: Veterans’ Jam and More
Well before noon on Saturday the General Admissions audience began taking full advantage of their daytime access to the reserved seating section, trickling into the seats in front of the Watson stage for the annual Veterans Jam as one by one, Peter Rowan, Jack Lawrence, Sam Bush, T. Michael Coleman, Joe Smothers and Wes Corbett came to the stage. As volunteers provided water bottles and helped the musicians checked their connections, a ripple of excitement almost visibly started vibrating. And then there they were: Scott and Seth Avett, sitting so far stage left they were almost invisible.
Over the next 45 minutes this line of accomplished musicians paid homage to Doc Watson and his music. Everybody got a turn to lead out. Song after song they played and sang, relaxed, veterans of stages all across the world, playing music as timeless as the surrounding mountains, at one with their instruments and each other.
Afterward the music continued even as incoming rain (without which no festival would be complete) drenched an unfazed crowd. Up on Hillside Stage, the Stringdusters played again. Inside Walker Center the Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra, all the way from Norway, met an appreciative audience. The Kruger Brothers, locally based national treasures, played to a whistling, stomping full house. Later, the Creekers brought their unique sound and MerleFest first-timers DownRiver Collective, a five-piece band of former Belmont University music students based out of Nashville, performed a strong set of original songs, with skill and the onstage assurance and cohesion of people who have been playing together for awhile. Back down the hill, the Sam Bush Band, Maggie Rose and Blackberry Smoke wound up the evening on the adjacent Watson and Cabin stages.
Sunday: Taking It Home
On its final day, MerleFest saw its biggest crowd yet as people flocked to reserve a spot for the evening’s headliner, multiple Grammy-winning Alison Krauss and Union Station. Pete Wernick, Dom Flemons, the Jack Wharff Band, Joy Oladokun and ukulele master Jake Shimabukuro played from various stages.
Up on Hillside Stage, the Jerry Douglas Band played to a large, enthusiastic crowd perched around the bowl-shaped ground rising above and around the stage. “Bluegrass is at the soul of everything we do up here,” Jerry told the audience. “Keep that in mind,” before launching into songs from his 2025 album The Set. Songs included the Celtic-infused “Gone to Fortingall”; “Something You Got,” an R&B standard that gave Jerry a chance to sing (which he does well and clearly enjoys); and two simply lovely melodies, “Renee” and “Deacon Waltz,” written by and featuring, respectively, band members Mike Seal on electric guitar and Christian Sedelmyer on fiddle.
Back down the hill at Watson Stage, the crowd waited patiently, and at 4:20 p.m. Alison Krauss and Union Station took the stage. Alison, along with longtime bandmates Barry Bales, Ron Block, Jerry Douglas, and Russell Moore from IIIrd Tyme Out in his second season with the band, welcomed newcomer Jacob Burleson, whose voice and instrumental work melded with the band as though he’d been with them for years instead of months. Alison’s crystalline voice and the group’s always impeccable, layered harmonies and instrumental excellence did not disappoint. With a set list ranging from newer songs off last year’s Arcadia to decades-old favorites, the group gave fans a night, and a performance, to remember. As the sun hid behind clouds and temps dropped, the air between performers and audience pulsated with a connection so strong as to be almost visible.
As people straggled back to stand the shuttle lines, children slept in strollers or exuberantly outran their tired parents. Waiting passengers hummed under their breath or talked quietly among themselves, sharing where they’d come from, reminiscing about a favorite act or a favorite past MerleFest experience. Stories told, friendships made, numbers exchanged.
It was a fitting end to MerleFest 2026.
About MerleFest
“I’ve never missed playing a MerleFest.”
“I was here the last year Doc played MerleFest.”
“MerleFest has been on my bucket list forever!”
“I’ve been to MerleFest every year since I was born.”
“MerleFest saved my life.”
Performers and fans uttered all of these sentences and more during last week’s 38th annual MerleFest, held annually on the last weekend in April in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.
Music festivals come in every shape and size and spread a wide, inclusive tent. Bluegrass festivals in particular span the U.S., from the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in Oak Hill, New York, to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and multiple points in between. But few festivals evoke the reverence with which people speak the name “MerleFest.”
The reason has everything to do with the festival’s origins. It began as an idea for raising money to build the Eddy Merle Watson Memorial Garden for the Senses on the grounds of Wilkes Community College. Doc Watson, Merle’s father and one of the most revered guitar players in all of music, who happened to also be a local, agreed to play a concert. He invited “a few friends” and word began to spread. Organizers had to change the date and the venue to accommodate the event, which quickly sold out.
When all was said and done, the first MerleFest, held April 30-May 1, 1988, included Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Chet Atkins, Tony Rice, Grandpa Jones and his daughter Alisa, John Hartford, Mark O’Connor, Jerry Douglas, New Grass Revival, and more. They had two stages.
Thirty-eight years later MerleFest boasts 12 stages; an expo hall for musical instruments; vendors for arts and crafts, food, and merchandise tents for MerleFest and the year’s featured acts; a kids’ area; a very impressive sand sculpture; shuttle service to and from area hotels, campgrounds and parking lots; and a not-so-small army of volunteers to enforce a family-friendly festival devoid of alcohol, tobacco products, illegal drugs, vaping, large umbrellas, tall chairs, drones, unauthorized video and flash photography.
It has become a tradition for individuals and entire families from North Carolina and around the world. It has also become a goal and a cherished milestone for bluegrass and Americana acts. Its songwriting and band contests, jam sessions and workshops—all contribute to a vital, multi-generational, ever-growing bluegrass and roots music scene.
Meanwhile a father proudly describes how his toddler turns his toy guitar sideways in imitation of a dobro. A preschooler can’t contain his excitement at spying a picture of Pete Seeger in the MerleFest Museum. Gangly teens participate in jam sessions, workshops and songwriting and band contests. Families make MerleFest a legacy occasion celebrated annually. Kids who grew up sitting in general admission grow up to grace on one of the twelve stages as performers. Artists who played the first MerleFest as young adults now serve as mentors and elders.
Whatever else happens in this world, the music will remain.