Moonlight meets game night: 8th annual Moonlight Festival will show UK-Oklahoma on the big screen

Record 56 vendors, country legend Sammy Kershaw and an expanded kids zone headline downtown Somerset’s signature fall festival Saturday

Moon­light fes­ti­val­go­ers won’t have to choose between a night in down­town Som­er­set and the Ken­tucky Wild­cats this year.

The City of Som­er­set and See Som­er­set Tourism will show the No. 15 Wild­cats’ game at Okla­homa on a large screen in the South Maple Street park­ing lot across from Judi­cial Cen­ter Plaza dur­ing the 8th annu­al Moon­light Fes­ti­val on Sat­ur­day, Oct. 17. Kick­off is 7:30 p.m., and the screen will start show­ing oth­er col­lege games and pregame cov­er­age at 5 p.m. The view­ing area will have full sound and sits far enough from the Foun­tain Square stage that fans can enjoy the game with­out miss­ing a note of the music.

“Our Cats are on a roll, and we weren’t about to make any­body pick between Moon­light and that game,” See Som­er­set Tourism Direc­tor Leslie Ikerd said. “So bring your chair and your appetite, grab a spot in front of the screen and cheer on the Wild­cats with a few thou­sand of your neigh­bors while also enjoy­ing an incred­i­ble night of music. It’s going to be a fun night down­town.”

Sev­er­al down­town restau­rants and venues will also be open and show­ing the game, and Ikerd encour­aged fes­ti­val­go­ers to make an evening of it.

“Our down­town busi­ness­es are a big part of what makes Moon­light spe­cial, and many of them will have the game on Sat­ur­day night, too,” Ikerd said. “Whether you watch from the plaza or from a seat inside one of our local spots, we hope you’ll stay a while and show them some love.”

Sat­ur­day’s fore­cast could­n’t be more fall — part­ly sun­ny skies and a high of 57 degrees will make for a crisp kick­off of the sea­son.

The fes­ti­val kicks off at 11 a.m. with 56 ven­dors — 35 food ven­dors, four spir­it ven­dors and 17 gen­er­al mer­chan­dise ven­dors — the most in Moon­light’s eight-year his­to­ry. The line­up ranges from bar­be­cue, soul food, tacos and Cajun dish­es to roast­ed corn, ket­tle corn, ice cream and cof­fee. Cave Hill Win­ery & Vine­yard, Cas­tle & Key Dis­tillery, West Sixth Brew­ery and Beeserk­er Mead­ery will round out the Ken­tucky food and spir­its expe­ri­ence.

“Every year, more ven­dors ask to be part of Moon­light, and that tells us some­thing about what this fes­ti­val has become,” Ikerd said. “We have long­time favorites peo­ple look for­ward to all year and some new fla­vors we can’t wait for folks to try. We’re so grate­ful to every one of them for choos­ing to be part of this tra­di­tion.”

The youngest fes­ti­val­go­ers will have even more to do this year in the Moon­light Kids Zone pre­sent­ed by Don Franklin, locat­ed in the Judi­cial Cen­ter Plaza and along South Maple Street. Thanks to Don Franklin’s sup­port, the Kids Zone will offer free activ­i­ties, includ­ing DJ Chef Geezy of Dynam­ic Enter­tain­ment spin­ning hits and host­ing games; bal­loon art and face paint­ing from Pow Wow Par­ties; Fore the Putt Putt mini golf; Luxe Bounce inflat­a­bles; and corn­hole. Kid-friend­ly ven­dors offer­ing toys, books, gifts, slime, Nee­doh and treats will be set up near­by — and par­ents can take a breather, too, with mas­sage spe­cials from Rip­pled Well.

The music begins at 11:30 a.m. on the Foun­tain Square stage and builds to a head­lin­ing per­for­mance by coun­try music leg­end Sam­my Ker­shaw at 8:45 p.m.

Ker­shaw’s string of 1990s hits includes “Cadil­lac Style,” “She Don’t Know She’s Beau­ti­ful,” “Queen of My Dou­ble Wide Trail­er” and “Love of My Life.”

“There are a lot of peo­ple in this com­mu­ni­ty who grew up singing along to Sam­my Ker­shaw’s songs,” Ikerd said. “Hav­ing him close out Moon­light is going to be a spe­cial way to end the night.”

The day’s line­up also fea­tures The Owen Wright Band with spe­cial guest Bec­ca Debord (11:30 a.m.); T.A. Clay­ton & The Soul­min­ers (1:30 p.m.), cho­sen by audi­ence vote as win­ner of the Food­stock Busker Music Con­test; Lau­ren-Michael Sell­ers (3:30 p.m.); The Som­er­set Big Band with spe­cial guests Spooky Fox and Bran­do Van­schoy­ck (5:15 p.m.); and The Band Loula (7 p.m.). All times are approx­i­mate.

The busker slot has become a fes­ti­val tra­di­tion that con­nects Som­er­set’s spring and fall events — and Van­schoy­ck, who joins the Big Band this year, won the con­test and the Moon­light stage in 2024.

Live art remains a fes­ti­val sta­ple. Bri­an Covert, Earth & Wind Col­lec­tive, Emm McGuire, Jake Wil­son, Jes­si­ca Acrey, Jobie Bradley, Lu Durham, Nate Michaels and The Shine House will cre­ate and sell their work around Foun­tain Square through­out the day.

Sat­ur­day will also be Som­er­set May­or Alan Keck­’s final Moon­light Fes­ti­val as may­or. The fes­ti­val launched in 2019, Keck­’s first year in office, as part of his vision to light up Som­er­set through free events cen­tered around music, food and art.

“Eight years ago, we had a sim­ple idea: give peo­ple a rea­son to come down­town, vis­it with their neigh­bors, and cel­e­brate Som­er­set’s sto­ry togeth­er,” Keck said. “What Leslie, our team and so many part­ners have built since then has gone beyond any­thing I ever imag­ined. These fes­ti­vals have cel­e­brat­ed our peo­ple and their incred­i­ble tal­ents, giv­en our local busi­ness­es a stage, and shown tens of thou­sands of vis­i­tors what we’ve always known about this place — that it tru­ly is the Spir­it of South­ern Ken­tucky. Sat­ur­day will be my last Moon­light as may­or, and I plan to soak up every minute.”

Ikerd said the city’s fes­ti­vals would not be pos­si­ble with­out the spon­sors who sup­port them.

“We are so grate­ful to our title spon­sor, Lake Cum­ber­land Tourism, for con­tin­u­ous­ly believ­ing in the val­ue of down­town, to Don Franklin for mak­ing the Kids Zone big­ger and bet­ter, and to the many spon­sors who step up year after year,” Ikerd said. “These fes­ti­vals improve qual­i­ty of life for our res­i­dents, give our vis­i­tors new expe­ri­ences and make a real eco­nom­ic impact on our com­mu­ni­ty. We could­n’t do it with­out them.”

Admis­sion to the 8th annu­al Moon­light Fes­ti­val is free. As with all city fes­ti­vals, patrons who want to pur­chase alco­holic bev­er­ages must buy 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

• Street clo­sures will begin at 5:30 p.m. Fri­day, Oct. 16, 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 motorists trav­el around the fes­ti­val area: 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 4 a.m. Sun­day, Oct. 18.
• Safe rides are spon­sored by The Law Office of Jere­my A. Bart­ley, PSC and pro­vid­ed by Pre­mier Trans­porta­tion of Lake Cum­ber­land. If you dri­ve to the fes­ti­val but need a ride home, call (606) 416‑1966 and make your way to Gate 1, at the inter­sec­tion of Cen­tral Avenue and East Mount Ver­non Street, to claim your ride. Rides are lim­it­ed to 15 miles, so if you live far­ther away, please sched­ule a drop-off point with­in that range.
• Acces­si­ble park­ing will be locat­ed at Gate 1, the park­ing lot on South Cen­tral Avenue across from First Methodist Church. The lot has ramp access for wheel­chairs, and atten­dants will be on-site to help with any needs or ques­tions. There will also be acces­si­ble spots locat­ed in the north­west cor­ner of the Judi­cial Plaza lot.