The Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival is a music and dance festival that takes place each spring and fall in Silk Hope, North Carolina

Silk Hope, North Carolina

Silk Hope, in Chatham County, North Carolina, USA, is a farm community centered on a community school, a volunteer fire department, several country churches, and many historical farmsteads. It is evolving into the country home of many who work in Cary, Chapel Hill, and Research Triangle Park...

, near Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...

. The festival takes place on a 75 acres (303,514.5 m²) farmstead which is managed by Shakori Hills, Inc. a non-profit organization. The festival has been held twice annually since 2003. It is associated with and modeled after the larger Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival

Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance

Starting in 1991, the Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance is an annual festival held the second-to-last weekend of July in Trumansburg, New York, a small town ten miles north of Ithaca. The GrassRoots Festival, or simply GrassRoots, as it is known, draws nearly 20,000 visitors...

 that takes place near Trumansburg, New York

Trumansburg, New York

Trumansburg is a village in Tompkins County, New York, United States. The population was 1,581 at the 2000 census. The name is a variant spelling of the surname of the founder, Abner Treman...

 each summer.

The Festival

The festival typically lasts four days, beginning on Thursday afternoon and going through Sunday night. The farmstead has two large outdoor stages, one large covered dance tent, and several smaller tents. Camping is available for an additional fee.
In addition to the music, the festival has dance and instrument workshops, a sustainability fair, kids activities, and food and craft vending. The festival is typically promoted as being kid and family friendly. Daily attendance for the 2007 festivals peaked at 5,200 participants.

Music

Each festival draws fifty or more bands who play on four stages over four days. Many genres of music are represented, including bluegrass

Bluegrass music

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

, zydeco

Zydeco

Zydeco is a form of uniquely American roots or folk music. It evolved in southwest Louisiana in the early 19th century from forms of "la la" Creole music...

, country-western, psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...

, folk rock

Folk rock

Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...

, reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

, and world music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

. Past headliners include Donna the Buffalo

Donna the Buffalo

Donna the Buffalo is a band from Trumansburg, New York. They play both originals and covers....

, Nickel Creek

Nickel Creek

Nickel Creek was an American progressive acoustic music trio consisting of Chris Thile , Sara Watkins and Sean Watkins . The band was founded in 1989 and released 6 albums between 1993 and 2006...

, Keith Frank

Keith Frank

Keith Frank is a zydeco musician from Louisiana. Frank started his band, The Soileau Zydeco Band, in 1990 and was active as of 2010. Frank is a 1998 graduate of McNeese State University.Frank records on Soulwood Records.-Studio Albums/EP:...

, Patty Loveless

Patty Loveless

Patty Loveless , is an American country music singer.Since her emergence on the country music scene in late 1986 with her first album, Loveless has been one of the most popular female singers of the Neotraditional country movement, although she has also recorded albums in the Country pop and...

 and Toubab Krewe

Toubab Krewe

Toubab Krewe is an American instrumental band which fuses the music of Mali with American musical styles . The group's instrumentation includes kora , kamelengoni , soku , two electric guitars, electric bass guitar, drum set, and African percussion...

.
Bands play throughout the day with headliners playing on the largest outdoor stage after sunset.

External links

• Official Shakori Hills homepage
• Official GrassRoots homepage

Several Charged at Shakori Hills Event*http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/4065237/article-Several-charged-at-Shakori-Hills-event