Headliners will be Country Music’s Eric Church and Lainey Wilson
FAIRFIELD COUNTY – Tickets go on sale this week for the Field & Stream Music Fest, a big country music festival that’s coming to Winnsboro Oct. 4-6.
The event, being put on by a Charlotte-based entertainment company in conjunction with Field & Stream, is intended to combine great country music with opportunities to explore the outdoors in the region, says Bob Durkin, co-founder of Southern Entertainment.
“Some of the people at the Field & Stream brand reached out to us about collaborating with us on a music festival…. We love Winnsboro and think it’s gorgeous, and it’s really a centrally located place to so many hubs of country music and, just as importantly, outdoor living,” Durkin says.
“When you take that [outdoor] culture and brand and you mix it with the best country music there is and you put it in a beautiful place like Winnsboro, it’s really going to become something special.”
The crowd is expected to be about 20,000 for the outdoor music festival, in a town whose population is around 3,500.
As site work moves forward to create the venue that will host the event next-door to Carolina Adventure World, Durkin says he hopes the festival will turn into something that happens every year.
In addition to three days of concerts headlined by country music stars Eric Church and Lainey Wilson, this year’s festival will also feature a variety of outdoor excursions that festival-goers can participate in.
They’re expected to include a variety of options, from bass fishing in Lake Wateree to guided tours on a side-by-side, to mountain biking, hiking, and possibly kayaking and rafting, plus skeet shooting and possibly archery.
“If you’ve ever been to a country music festival and you’ve enjoyed it,” Durkin says, “this is going to be an added element.”
A variety of accommodations will be constructed on the festival site, including tent and car camping, RV camping, cabins, and glamping.
Ticket prices for the three-day event will range from $179 to over $1,000 for different levels of access, and parking fees will also be charged. Camping options will range from $229 for tent sites to more than $1,800 for glamping.
Durkin says Winnsboro’s proximity to I-77 will help facilitate access not only for festival-goers staying on the site for the full three days, but also those who may travel for the day from Charlotte, Columbia, and beyond.
He says festival organizers are working with state and local officials to ensure safety and expect that the event will bring a lot of business to area restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and other businesses.
As the event nears, he says, more information will be available on the festival website at https://fieldandstreammusicfest.com/ about tickets, work and volunteer opportunities, and he says a lot of conversations are going on locally to identify memorable outdoor excursions to coincide with the music festival.
“We love the Winnsboro area, and we couldn’t be more proud and excited to help showcase it and we are working with state and local officials, obviously to make it as safe as possible, and then to give everybody the most enjoyable experience they can get,” Durkin says.
“We’re hoping to create jobs for the local community [and] to expose some beautiful local communities to the outside visitors and festival-goers, so we’re glad to have the local community really help participate and host all these people that are going to come and enjoy the weekend.”
