Mountain Makins Festival

Mountain Makins is an award-winning festival which started in 1976 as a way to raise funds to save historic Rose School.  The festival continues to support the preservation of the Rose School building, provides Arts Education for residents of 5 counties, and serves to keep Appalachian history and culture vibrant and alive for generations to come.  Festival goers come year after year, from distances far and wide, to immerse themselves in the very best of Appalachian culture, food, music, dance, crafts, artwork, and fun!

The celebration begins with a Preview Party on Friday, October 27. Advance-only tickets for this special event are $25. Guests will be treated to a gourmet buffet and exclusive early-bird shopping.  Additionally, Preview guests are admitted to the festival free on both Saturday and Sunday. (Festival Hack–Preview Tickets bring best value and access to the festival.)

All weekend, artisans will exhibit throughout the historic building and the surrounding grounds.  Authentic craftspeople, carefully selected through a rigorous jury process, are on hand to demonstrate folk-life skills, giving guests -young and old- a chance to see traditional basket weaving, blacksmithing, apple butter making, broom making, beekeeping, woodturning and other necessities of frontier life in Appalachia.  The historic Rose Center and surrounding grounds are filled with high-quality, hand-made pottery, glasswork, jewelry, wood carving, soaps and lotions, fine art, fiber art, folk art, candles, wreaths, soft sculpture, baskets, toys and much, much more.

Visitors can also listen to live bluegrass, newgrass and old time music, “set a spell” in the storytelling tent, enter a drawing for the 2017 Mountain Makins Quilt, see more than a dozen dance groups, talk with local authors, and let their children paint a pumpkin, ride a pony, and more.  We look forward to seeing you this year, …and the next,…and the one after that.  It is a fall family tradition that must be experienced to be appreciated.