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North Carolina Folk Festival named ‘Signature Event of the Southeast for 2025’

The Southeast Tourism Society (STS) has named the North Carolina Folk Festival as one of its Signature Events of the Southeast for 2025, recognizing it among the region’s top annual festivals. Travel industry experts select these top events each year, shining a spotlight on the people and experiences that make them special.

“Being named a Signature Event of the Southeast is an incredible honor, but it’s only the start,” said Jodee Ruppel, NC Folk Festival executive director, in a release. “This recognition inspires our commitment to keep growing with more amazing artists, diverse traditions, and bringing new audiences to Greensboro to experience the vibe of our festival and our city.”

The 2025 NC Folk Festival will fill downtown Greensboro with the sounds of global music Sept. 12–14. This year’s headliners include Sammy Rae & The Friends (Friday), Arrested Development (Saturday) and Steep Canyon Rangers (Sunday).

The three-day festival, now in its 11th year, began as the National Folk Festival before transitioning into its North Carolina version. It draws more than 100,000 visitors to downtown Greensboro annually.

“Being named a Signature Event of the Southeast is a tremendous honor that speaks volumes about the North Carolina Folk Festival’s impact—not just in our community, but across the region,” said Melvin “Skip” Alston, chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, in a release. “Guilford County has long been a destination for arts, culture, and community, and we couldn’t be prouder of the Folk Festival in achieving this national recognition. The festival is a celebration of the rich diversity that makes our community special, and this accolade reinforces what we’ve always known—it’s one of the best events in the South.

“It’s wonderful to see the N.C. Folk Festival recognized as a Signature Event of the Southeast. This honor reflects the talent, diversity and community spirit the festival brings to Greensboro every year, and it’s exciting to see something that started here getting regional recognition,” says Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan.

For more than 40 years, STS has celebrated the Southeast’s premier festivals, honoring the dedication of event organizers while providing additional exposure. Events considered for the STS Signature Events of the Southeast recognition must be at least three years old and attract a minimum of 1,000 attendees.


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Inaugural Biscuits and Banjos festival comes to Durham on April 25-27

A music festival curated by GRAMMY & Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens, and dedicated to the reclamation and exploration of Black music, art, and culture in her home state of North Carolina.

Biscuits and Banjos will take place in downtown Durham at the Durham Performing Arts Center, The Armory, Carolina Theater and more locations, according to a press release.

Greensboro native Giddens’ new festival spans three days to exchange ideas, expand conversations, uplift traditions, and trace the musical and geographical connections of old time, country, Americana, folk, jazz and blues to highlight their complicated origins. The festival will champion Black artists and creators, offering robust musical performances alongside secondary programming to include lectures, workshops and readings from authors, chefs, visual artists, and more. Black culture is not a monolith, and this gathering will provide an opportunity for those working outside the mainstream to come together in community, as well as showing the similar journeys the culture has taken across music, food, and literature.

The festival will honor the 20th Anniversary of the Black Banjo Gathering – a landmark musical summit held in Boone, N.C., in 2005 that became the impetus behind the creation of GRAMMY-winning black string band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which launched Giddens’ career. She immediately identified Durham as the ideal location to house Biscuits & Banjos given her personal connection to the city and its diverse reach and thriving contemporary culture, as well as its historical Black heritage.

Indoor programming will be ticketed and outdoor programming will be free to the public.

Biscuits & Banjos is a non-profit, community responsive festival. Funding for Biscuits & Banjos is made possible in part by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, North Carolina Humanities, the Danielle Rose Paikin Foundation, the Harper House Foundation, Warner Music Group/Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund, Duke Arts and Duke Community Affairs, and other generous individual donors, civic, and community partners.

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Tift Merritt and Thomas Sayre present ‘Four Walls, Four Songs’ on Saturday, Feb. 15

Tift Merritt playing piano and singing inside art exhibit.

On Saturday, Feb. 15, the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina, will once again host a special performance by Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Tift Merritt and North Carolina Artist Thomas Sayre.

“Four Walls, Four Songs,” a sound response to Thomas Sayre’s “Four Walls,” returns to Cameron Art Museum for a reprise at 7 p.m. The performance explores the burned, brushed, rusted and razed layers of Sayre’s visual work. Merritt’s multi-movement piece uses voice, piano, and guitar while drawing us deeper into the elemental artworks on display in Sayre’s “Four Walls.” Drawing from a deep friendship and creative dialogue between the two artists, Merritt crafts a sound exploration that resonates with the materials, visuals, and questions posed by Sayre’s monumental piece.

The first showing of this performance in September 2024 sold out completely, with one attendee describing it as “a remarkable multi-sensory exhibit that pushed the bounds of the typical gallery/museum experience.” 

Tickets for CAM Members are $75; not-yet members $100.

TICKETS

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