90th Annual Mountain Dance & Folk Festival moves to new A-B Tech Conference Center

The 90th Annual Mountain Dance & Folk Festival will be held for the first time at A-B Tech’s
Asheville campus in the new A-B Tech/Mission Health Conference Center. The three-day
event will be held August 3-5, 2017 from 7-10pm. The new location will allow for ample free
parking and an unparalleled ease of access for concertgoers. The venue has room for over 500
enthusiastic patrons per night enjoying the regions best music for this the 90th season. Tickets
are on sale now at www.mdff.eventbrite.com in prices ranging from $12-$22 for single night
tickets and $60 for all three nights.

Bascom Lamar Lunsford founded the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival as a means for people
to share and understand the beauty and dignity of the Southern Appalachian music and dance
traditions that have been handed down through generations in western North Carolina. He saw
the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival grow to be the oldest gathering of its kind in the nation
and it continues in this way, a platform for the talented of the high country lying between the
Great Smoky and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Since 1928, the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival has served a crucial role in raising awareness
and understanding of the vitality and importance of Southern Appalachian culture throughout the
region, nation and world. Bascom Lunsford’s mission was to present the finest of the
Appalachian ballad singers, string bands and square dance teams for education and
entertainment. The songs and dances shared at this event echo centuries of Scottish, English,
Irish, Cherokee and African heritage found in the valleys and coves between the Great Smokies
and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Lunsford’s was the first dubbed a folk festival, and he later
consulted with many communities across the country interested in organizing similar festivals.

Shindig on the Green and the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival are annual summer events
presented by Asheville’s Folk Heritage Committee. Both events rely on the generosity and shared
talent of the region’s finest old-time musicians and mountain dancers, as well as the all-volunteer
Folk Heritage Committee and corporate and individual donors.