It seems cruising those country roads heading home really is that popular in West Virginia, a state that is home to numerous popular fairs and festivals each and every year.
From the Strawberry Festival in Buckhannon to Bridge Day events in Oak Hill, andf the winter wonderland that is the Oglebay Festival of Lights to the West Virginia State Fair in Lewisburg – there are incredible events both great and small found in all corners of the Mountain State. In 2021, WV Living Magazine selected the State Fair as its top event.
The 2022 winner? Well, that one is a little closer to “home.”
The announcement was made today by WV Living Magazine that the Back Home Festival in New Martinsville, an annual three-day celebration of music, memories, and fun, was selected as the state’s best.
“Honestly, one of the things I’m most proud of is that last year, the winner was the West Virginia State Fair, and we beat the State Fair so that’s pretty exciting to think about,” said Robby Parsons, lead organizer and executive director of the Wetzel County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Voting was conducted at wvliving.com and fans selected the Back Home Festival as their top event in its Best of West Virginia contest. That’s pretty esteemed company, but the Back Home Fest has earned that right.
Starting in 2017 in New Martinsville, each year the festival has seen an increase in attendance, along with the quality of acts taking the stage. Recently, Back Home’s Facebook made its first festival lineup announcement—the Sam Grisman Project, which will hit the state Friday, June 23 at 7:30 p.m.
There will be more announcements to follow as Parsons pretty much has the three-day lineup wrapped up and ready to go.
“It’s gone really well,” Parsons said. “I’m pretty much done with the booking. There are a couple of loose ends to tie up but we’re real close to releasing the entire lineup.”
Slow Morph of the Lineup
Started in 2017 as the Back Home Appalachian Arts & Music Festival, #BackHome began with primarily bluegrass artists throughout its lineup, with a couple of outliers in terms of genre.
The mixture always worked to the delight of the crowd, but it was the crowd where Parsons started noticing the potential need for a change.
“I first noticed it a few years ago, when we did the festival, we started having a lot of, for lack of a better term, hippies attending the festival,” Parsons said. “So we started catering to that a little bit more and putting more jam bands in the lineup.
“Right now, I’d say we’re probably 70-30 in terms of jam bands to bluegrass so while we started as a bluegrass festival it’s kind of morphed into a more diverse thing.”
Parsons noted that there’s been a small amount of pushback from “maybe one or two people” but, overall, the reception to the change has been positive.
It’s done nothing to diminish the quality of acts at the venue or the positive vibe in the crowd.
Speaking of the crowd, the field in which Back Home is held can contain around 20,000 fans. For more than a few of the bigger named acts, that field has brimmed to near capacity, showing just how large this festival has grown.
Positive Impact
This Best of West Virginia honor isn’t the first time Parsons has been part of recognition by WV Living.
Two years ago, the festival itself was voted the best fair/festival/event for the Northern Panhandle, and Parsons himself was selected as the Community Champion for the same.
It’s easy to see why, as the festival has grown into a significant economic boon every summer for Wetzel County.
Parsons noted that direct spending through tourism increased over 100 percent in Wetzel County since the festival’s inception. The next closest county? That would be Monongalia, home to West Virginia University. Its percentage increase was in the 40s.
That’s a big boost.
“Since we started back in 2017, it’s been a big boost for the economic structure of our county,” Parsons admitted. “We’ve had the greatest growth of direct tourism spending in the state as far as counties go.
“That alone tells me something and, I know when we didn’t have the festival one year because of COVID, we had businesses tell us they really missed not having that three-day jolt for their business.”
Fear not fans and businesses alike. Back Home is here to stay, and Parsons and fellow event organizers are working to make sure everyone can go #BackHome every summer for decades to come.
