Jenny Brook - Getting Ready

Building a bluegrass festival is harder and more complex than most people imagine. For most promoters, a festival is a year round job that they must fit in between their real job and all their other obligations. Booking, organizing volunteers,developing a site, ordering materials, contracting with vendors, arranging printing of programs, doing publicity, and many more tasks take place throughout the year's runup to a three or four day festival. Our job as volunteers began on Monday, when we drove up to Tunbridge, VT to discover that the grounds where the newly re-located Jenny Brook Family Bluegrass Festival would be held on the ironically named Tunbridge World's Fair Grounds were still in use by a horse show sponsored by 4-H.


The Tunbridge World's Fair takes place in the tiny village of Tunbridge, VT, but is a major event for the community, which takes huge and justified pride it. The fair grounds have a full-time staff of five who have gone out of their way to make Jenny Brook welcome and help it be a success in its new location. From the moment we arrived, it was obvious that the staff and board of directors were fully behind the effort.

Grounds Manager Cliff Goewey and Board Member Bill Danforth

The Jenny Brook stage had been dismantled and moved from it's former home in Weston, VT and reassembled on the grounds. It sat in a large barn, ready to be moved on its site for the festival.


Promoter Candi Sawyer and her husband Seth arrived and were happy to see that a couple of golf carts had been provided to help them move easily around the spacious grounds.

Candi & Seth Sawyer

The Stage Continues its Move

Kenny Whiton - Volunteer

Lonnie Mathews - Candi's Dad

The Tents Arrive

...and Rise

Vendors Begin Set-up

George Collins - Volunteer

Volunteers Need Breaks Too

While the Site is Shaping Up

Sign Construction at 10:00 P.M.

Toni & Bruce Kendall Assist Candi

Wednesday Morning Fog Burns Off

Folks will begin to arrive at around noon today, and a barn dance with covered dish supper will kick off events in the evening. The grounds are in great shape and ready for a crowd as well as able to absorb lots of rain without becoming too muddy. Come on out and expect to enjoy yourself.