The Sierra Nevada World Music Festival is an annual music festival held every June on the weekend of (or the weekend following) the summer solstice

Summer solstice

The summer solstice occurs exactly when the axial tilt of a planet's semi-axis in a given hemisphere is most inclined towards the star that it orbits. Earth's maximum axial tilt to our star, the Sun, during a solstice is 23° 26'. Though the summer solstice is an instant in time, the term is also...

. It is currently held at the Mendocino County

Mendocino County, California

Mendocino County is a county located on the north coast of the U.S. state of California, north of the greater San Francisco Bay Area and west of the Central Valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 87,841, up from 86,265 at the 2000 census...

 Fairgrounds in Boonville, California

Boonville, California

Boonville is a census-designated place in Mendocino County, California. It is located southwest of Ukiah, at an elevation of 381 feet . The population was 1,035 at the 2010 census.-History:...

.

The festival began in 1994 in Marysville, California

Marysville, California

Marysville is the county seat of Yuba County, California, United States. The population was 12,072 at the 2010 census, down from 12,268 at the 2000 census. It is included in the Yuba City Metropolitan Statistical Area, often referred to as the Yuba-Sutter Area after the two counties, Yuba and...

 by organizer Warren Smith. Citing problems with crime in its initial location, organizers moved the festival to Angels Camp, California

Angels Camp, California

Angels Camp, also known as City of Angels and formerly Angel's Camp, Angels, Angels City, Carson's Creek, and Clearlake, is the only incorporated city in Calaveras County, California, United States. The population was 3,835 at the 2010 census, up from 3,004 at the 2000 census...

 in 2001. After five years in Calaveras County

Calaveras County, California

Calaveras County is a county located in the Gold Country of the U.S. state of California. Calaveras is the Spanish word for skulls; the county was reportedly named for the remains of Native Americans discovered by the Spanish explorer Captain Gabriel Moraga. As of the 2010 census, the county had a...

, fairgrounds management insisted on hiring its own security and billing the festival. Organizers refused, causing the county to void the contract between the two parties. The festival settled in its current location, where it has operated since 2006.

Despite the festival's name, its primary focus is on 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...

 music, along with a secondary focus on 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"...

 acts. The festival boasts a "valley stage" (main stage), "village stage" (secondary stage), dancehall and drum circle, which can all feature music running concurrently.

Along with its many other veteran acts, the SNWMF is notable for being the first to bring Junior Byles

Junior Byles

Kerrie Byles is a reggae singer, born July 17, 1948 in Kingston, Jamaica.-The Versatiles:...

abroad, whereupon he performed a 45-minute set in for the festival in 1998.