Bring your chair and your appetite: 6th annual Moonlight Festival is Saturday

Perfect fall forecast expected for annual festival featuring live music, art, vendors, food and spirits in downtown Somerset

SOMERSET, KENTUCKY (Octo­ber 15, 2024) — Fall tem­per­a­tures offi­cial­ly hit Som­er­set this week, and it couldn’t be more appro­pri­ate as the City of Som­er­set and See Som­er­set Tourism pre­pare for downtown’s sig­na­ture fall event on Sat­ur­day, Oct. 19.

The fore­cast calls for mild tem­per­a­tures and lots of sun­shine dur­ing the 6th annu­al Moon­light Fes­ti­val, which kicks off at 11 a.m. and offers a day full of live music, art acti­va­tions, ven­dors and Ken­tucky food and spir­its. 

See Som­er­set Tourism Direc­tor Leslie Ikerd loves to see it.

“Hav­ing an out­door fes­ti­val is always a gam­ble, but Moth­er Nature con­tin­ues to be kind to us, and this year’s fore­cast so far is per­fec­tion,” Ikerd said. “Bring your chair and your appetite to down­town Som­er­set Sat­ur­day and enjoy a crisp fall day filled with com­mu­ni­ty and fel­low­ship.”

Brought to you by Lake Cum­ber­land Tourism, this year’s Moon­light Fes­ti­val will fea­ture near­ly 30 food and spir­it ven­dors, includ­ing sev­er­al that patrons have come to expect and a few offer­ing new and unique fla­vors. Local and region­al artists — Megan Bradley, Jeff Scrib­n­er, Gimme Hugs Dude & Sun­shine Ford, Jacob Wil­son, Anns­ley Hum­ble, Eri­ka Mar­tin, Kara Nor­ris, The Shine House and Ani­ta Sti­gall — will paint bour­bon bar­rel lids live with the theme “favorite tourism spots for locals and vis­i­tors in your favorite sea­son,” and set up their wares around Foun­tain Square. 

One notice­able change at this year’s fes­ti­val is the shift in loca­tion for the kids’ area, which will move to the South Maple park­ing lot to make way for a new #see­my­set ven­dor out­let in the Judi­cial Cen­ter Plaza. The out­let will fea­ture bou­tiques and sev­er­al new ven­dors offer­ing hand­craft­ed and curat­ed pieces. The kids’ area will con­tin­ue to offer inflat­a­bles, art, face paint­ing and bal­loon ani­mals.

Many down­town busi­ness­es, restau­rants and enter­tain­ment venues will also open their doors to the thou­sands who con­verge on the square for this pop­u­lar event, Ikerd said.

“In addi­tion to vis­it­ing the ven­dors set up through­out down­town streets, we encour­age peo­ple attend­ing Moon­light to stop in and check out the many busi­ness­es mak­ing our down­town a vibrant, won­der­ful place through­out the year,” Ikerd said. “We are so grate­ful to all of these folks, our ven­dors and busi­ness­es, for invest­ing in down­town Som­er­set and choos­ing to be a part of what has become a won­der­ful fall tra­di­tion in our com­mu­ni­ty.”

That tra­di­tion includes a full day of live music on the Foun­tain Square stage, fea­tur­ing local, region­al and nation­al acts and one in par­tic­u­lar that is cho­sen by a pre­vi­ous fes­ti­val audi­ence. Somerset’s spring fes­ti­val, Food­stock, fea­tures a Busker Music Con­test in which local musi­cians com­pete for a slot on the Moon­light Fes­ti­val stage. Audi­ence-goers vote on their favorite per­former, and this year, they chose Bran­do Van­schoy­ck to take that 12:30 p.m. slot. Van­schoy­ck is an accom­plished vocal­ist and song­writer with an eclec­tic sound derived from rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and soul.

“Our Busker con­test has become a real­ly great way for us to con­nect our spring and fall fes­ti­vals and get our audi­ence involved in who we have on stage,” Ikerd said. “I’m so excit­ed for Brando’s per­for­mance and hope our com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to sup­port our local musi­cians at both events.”

Kick­ing off the fes­ti­val at 11 a.m. is anoth­er local favorite, Shades of Raven, an ener­getic hard rock band — Cody Mote (drums), Cody Tay­lor (lead vocals/guitar), Dylan War­ren (bass) and Jared Tay­lor (vocals/guitar) — that brings a unique musi­cal blend and a mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence to the stage. 

Shades of Raven and Van­schoy­ck join a line­up rich in coun­try, blues and soul, includ­ing Ken­tucky coun­try artist Rye Davis (2 p.m.), renowned Nashville blues gui­tarist and vocal­ist Sta­cy Mitch­hart Band (3:30 p.m.), Amer­i­can Idol final­ist and Amer­i­cana song­writer-per­former Paul McDon­ald & The Mourn­ing Doves (5:15 p.m.), Amer­i­can coun­try singer-song­writer Drew Green (7 p.m.), and the fes­ti­val’s head­lin­er, Col­in Stough (8:45 p.m.). All times are approx­i­mate.

Stough, a coun­try rock phe­nom knock­ing on the door to his 20s, has been play­ing music since he was 8 years old. He first pur­sued artis­tic dreams at 10, bold­ly trad­ing child­hood pos­ses­sions for his first gui­tar at a local pawn shop – an instru­ment he still plays. After grad­u­at­ing high school, the gift­ed singer and self-taught song­writer began work­ing full-time as an HVAC tech­ni­cian before his moth­er con­vinced him to audi­tion for Amer­i­can Idol.

Impress­ing judges Luke Bryan, Katy Per­ry, and Lionel Richie, Stough stunned view­ers and soon built a thriv­ing fan base, fin­ish­ing third on Sea­son 21 of the show in 2022. He has since been writ­ing and record­ing orig­i­nal music and tour­ing nation­wide, and has shared the stage with Moon­light alums Kidd G and Drake White.

“Col­in is an incred­i­ble young per­former with an even more incred­i­ble sto­ry, and I think our fes­ti­val-goers are going to love his sound and his ener­gy,” Ikerd said. “It’s going to be a great day of music.”

Ikerd stressed that the city’s fes­ti­vals would not be pos­si­ble with­out the many spon­sors who sup­port these events. 

“We are so grate­ful to our title spon­sor, Lake Cum­ber­land Tourism, and the many spon­sors that repeat­ed­ly step up to the plate to help us cre­ate events that boost the qual­i­ty of life for our res­i­dents and give our vis­i­tors new, unique expe­ri­ences,” Ikerd said. “Our fes­ti­vals are mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic impact on our com­mu­ni­ty, and we couldn’t do it with­out these sup­port­ive busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions.” 

Admis­sion to the 6th annu­al Moon­light Fes­ti­val is free, but as with all city fes­ti­vals, patrons who want to pur­chase alco­holic bev­er­ages must pur­chase a $5 spir­it wrist­band at the gate. 

A com­plete list of Moon­light ven­dors and artists, as well as the music sched­ule, is avail­able at seesomerset.com/somerset-moonlight-festival/ or @SeeSomersetKy on Face­book.

Impor­tant fes­ti­val week­end infor­ma­tion:

• Fes­ti­val street clo­sures will begin at 5 p.m. Fri­day, Oct. 18, and include the Cen­tral Avenue inter­sec­tion of East Mount Ver­non Street (Cen­tral Avenue will remain open to traf­fic), South Maple Street close to Dun­bar Head Start, South Maple and East Mar­ket streets, North Maple and Colum­bia streets, South Main and West Mar­ket streets, North Main and West Colum­bia streets, and West Mount Ver­non and Vine streets. The fol­low­ing road­ways will help avoid closed streets: Cen­tral Avenue, Lime­stone Avenue, Oak Street, Vine Street, Craw­ford Avenue, South Richard­son Dri­ve, Mur­phy Avenue, Jarvis Avenue, Col­lege Street and Bar­nett Street. Streets will reopen at 5 a.m. Sun­day, Oct. 20.
• Safe rides are spon­sored by The Law Office of Jere­my A. Bart­ley, PSC and pro­vid­ed by Pre­mier Trans­porta­tion of Lake Cum­ber­land. If you live local­ly and want to pre-book your trans­porta­tion, call (606) 308‑4601. There will be a spe­cial fes­ti­val day group rate. Please call and sched­ule to get pric­ing and oth­er details you may need to know. Should you dri­ve to the fes­ti­val but feel you need a ride home, this ser­vice is also avail­able to you. Call (606) 308‑4601 and make your way to Gate 1, locat­ed at the inter­sec­tion of Cen­tral Avenue and E. Mt. Ver­non Street, to claim your ride. There is a 15-mile lim­it on rides, so if your loca­tion is fur­ther than that, please sched­ule a loca­tion to be dropped off at that is with­in this range.
• Hand­i­cap park­ing will be locat­ed at Gate 1. This is the park­ing lot on South Cen­tral Avenue across from First Methodist Church. This loca­tion has ramp access for wheel­chairs if need­ed. Atten­dants will be onsite at the lot to mon­i­tor the lot and assist with any needs or ques­tions that may arise.