Winfield, KS — Walnut Valley Festival workers have spent the past 24 hours doing their best to put the finishing touches on the Winfield Fairgrounds in preparation for the Wednesday September 17th start.

Events kick off with the hands on workshops in town. Musicians and fans alike will have the opportunity to bring their instruments and study with top professional artists that are masters of guitar, banjo, hammered dulcimer, mandolin as well as vocal and songwriting classes.

The organized music will begin Wednesday evening at the Winfield Fairgrounds with an evening concert of Cowboy Music provided by Bill Barwick, Roz Brown, Dave Stamey and the Diamond W Wranglers. The concert will begin at 7:30 pm.

The concert has been move from the original Stage 3 location to inside the barn housing the festival’s Stage 4.

Another piece of the Walnut Valley Festival that is very important to a lot of fans and musicians are the world famous championship instrument contests. Acoustic instrument musicians and fans come to the festival from around the world to witness and test their musical skills against some of the world’s top players. Each year the festival hosts 8 different contests – the International Autoharp Championship, the International Finger Style Guitar Championship, the National Mountain Dulcimer Championship, National Flat Pick Guitar Championship, National Hammered Dulcimer Championship and the National Bluegrass Banjo. The Walnut Valley Festival is also the home of the Walnut Valley Mandolin Championship and the Walnut Valley Old Time Fiddle Championship.

This year’s contests will include entries from all over the United States as well as from 5 foreign countries.

The high water over the past several days has forced festival organizers to make some changes in operations on the festival grounds. There will be no on grounds camping. The City of Winfield is permitting campers to stay at the Winfield City Lake. There is plenty of room for campers, and a limited number of electric hook ups.

The festival organizers have made arrangements with the Winfield School District to provide shuttle service to and from the off-grounds camping areas and festival proper. There will also be “Park and Ride” shuttle buses running from the downtown parking lots as well as the Winfield High School parking lot to and from the festival.

Advance tickets are currently available for the Walnut Valley Festival set to begin on September 17th at the Winfield Fairgrounds. Additional information can be found on the World Wide Web at wvfest.com or from the Walnut Valley Office at 918 Main Street in Winfield, Kansas or by calling 620-221-3250. Tickets are available at the office or at the Walnut Valley festival grounds.

Updates will be released to the local media and available on the Walnut Valley Festival website at www.wvfest.com and here on BluegrassJournal.com as they become available.