Kalona Bluegrass Festival makes its return this weekend

The Kalona Bluegrass Festival is the latest area event to resurrect after taking off a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The festival, in its 34th year, will be Friday through Sunday at the Windmill Ridge Campground, south of Kalona.

Paul Roberts, one of the festival organizers, is thrilled about the event’s return.

“We are so pleased to be able to do this,” Roberts said. “There are a lot of people who have RVs who go from festival to festival over the summer. Then, there’s people like us who go and play at different ones, and we haven’t seen them in a year and a half or two years.

“We’ll get together and be able to make music with them again.”

The festival’s headliner is Paul Family Bluegrass from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

“We didn’t know how this was going to go with this whole festival due to COVID,” Roberts said. “We said we weren’t going to spend a lot of money to get out of state bands, but we had an anonymous sponsor who is helping to pay for the Paul Family to come.”

The Paul Family will perform at 3 p.m. and 9:10 p.m., Saturday and at 10 a.m., Sunday.

Other performers include Bob and Kristie Black and Banjoy of North English, Straightback Chair of Williamsburg, the McPunk Brothers of Sharon Center, the Briggs Family Band of New Virginia, the Anderegg Family of Ryan and Fine Line Bluegrass of Albia.

The festival closes with Sunday hymn sing at 10:45 a.m.

Organizers are hoping for a good turnout.

“We’re sure hoping that there will be a good crowd,” Roberts said. “We don’t know. We never know.

“We’re really not promoters. We’re people who just want this thing to not die. We want to keep it going.”

They are focused on planning a family-friendly event, so no alcohol is allowed.

“We want to have an event with bluegrass music that people can come to and not be afraid to take their kids to,” Roberts said.

Food will be available on the grounds, and people are encouraged to bring lawn chairs.

For more information visit banjoy.com/kalonabluegrassfestival.