Bluegrass Music Found Roots in Raleigh, Now It's Time for a New Era
Wednesday, October 09, 2024, 9am by David Menconi

Note: Authored by David Menconi, this piece has been produced in partnership with Raleigh Arts. Menconi's latest book, "Oh, Didn't They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music," was published in the fall of 2023 by University of North Carolina Press. His podcast, Carolina Calling, explores the history of the Tar Heel State through music.
The International Bluegrass Music Association’s annual World of Bluegrass ended its Raleigh era with another successful edition, Sept. 24-28. Official figures for the 2024 convention and festival won’t be available for several weeks, but PineCone (Piedmont Council of Traditional Music) executive director David Brower estimates a six-figure turnout.
“My sense is we were in the neighborhood of 125,000 to 150,000,” says Brower, who oversaw the IBMA Bluegrass Live! powered By PNC outdoor street festival. “That was really encouraging, given the week we had.”
Weather is always a wild card for outdoor fall events in North Carolina, and it proved uncooperative this year with Hurricane Helene bearing down as bluegrass week got underway. Rain in the forecast forced cancellation of Friday’s early shows.
But the show went on Friday evening and Saturday, with big crowds on the free outdoor stages along Fayetteville St. and at the ticketed Red Hat Amphitheater. Sierra Ferrell, Chatham County Line and Amythyst Kiah were among the main-stage acts that performed.
“We really wanted to have it outside to put a cap on this IBMA run with our signature experience, which is walking elbow to elbow up and down Fayetteville St.,” says Brower. “Crowds were good, like what you’d see on the State Fair midway.”
Going back to 2013, there were years when IBMA drew more than 200,000 attendees to Raleigh. It also had hiccups, with weather forcing the street festival shows inside the Raleigh Convention Center in 2015 and again in 2022. Then there was the 2020 Coronavirus shutdown, which forced the event to go virtual. But through it all, Brower singles out title sponsor PNC for its steadfast support of the festival all 12 years, “through two hurricanes and a pandemic.”
After this year’s Raleigh finale, IBMA is moving its convention and festival to Chattanooga, Tenn., in 2025. But Raleigh already has plans in motion to replace it with a festival of its own. Scheduled for Oct. 3-4, 2025, is Raleigh Wide Open, a festival that ought to feel familiar to anyone who has been coming to World of Bluegrass over the years.
“Our goal is to provide the same experience and level of joy as this past weekend,” says Brower. “If we pull it off, you won’t notice much of a difference when you come downtown. Lots of starch, sugar, fried stuff, beer for the adults, ice cream for the kids and free stages with great music up and down Fayetteville St.”
Next year’s lineup should be a little broader than just bluegrass—“maybe more Willie Watsons than super-traditional straight-ahead bluegrass bands,” as Brower puts it—and it may or may not include Red Hat Amphitheater, at least at first. And even though IBMA is gone, its presence here in Raleigh for so long set the stage for what the city can do next.
“IBMA planted a seed that’s here to stay,” says Brower. “Them coming here served as validator of something many of us already knew, that bluegrass is rooted here. Go to a tailgate party at N.C. State [University], and it’s likely you’ll see a bluegrass band playing. It’s part of who we are. Lots of folks in buttoned-up downtown Raleigh needed proof from an outside organization coming from Nashville to show us what we have here. In that sense, IBMA coming here served its purpose. Which is awesome.
“It changes the feel of downtown when these festivals happen,” Brower adds. “We need that these days, especially with the work from home scene. We have to think creatively about how to draw people downtown now, because work doesn’t do it anymore. That’s just reality.”
PineCone was part of the Local Organizing Committee that produced the free weekend street festival in conjunction with IBMA's business conference and awards show coming to Raleigh since 2013.
In their efforts to spread traditional and roots music to audiences far and wide, PineCone hosts an Old Time Jam at Riparian Provision Co. on the second Thursday of each month, a Beginners' Jam Session at Harry's Guitar shop on the third Monday of each month and an Open Bluegrass Jam at Transfer Co. Food Hall on the fourth Monday of each month. They also host a monthly Downhome Concert Series during the first half of each calendar year (2025 dates and performers coming soon).
Header photo by Rob Laughter. Middle photo by Garrett Poulos.
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Author: David Menconi
2019 Piedmont Laureate David Menconi was music critic at The News & Observer in Raleigh for 28 years and has also written for publications including Billboard, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, SPIN, The Bluegrass Situation and No Depression. His fifth book, "Oh, Didn’t They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music," was published in October 2023 by University of North Carolina Press.
David's photo by Teresa Moore