As part of my travels, I like to seek out music festivals / venues. While researching for my 2020 Florida trip, I found the 30A Song Writers Festival. The festival’s driving force is the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County, Florida. The festival is named for 30A highway which runs between Santa Rosa Beach and Rosemary Beach in the Florida Panhandle, a really laid back area.

I really enjoyed the music, the musicians, the attendees and the venues. The artists run from well established names/ acts to new comers. In most cases, each musician / group will play at multiple venues over the course of the festival. At some venues, the musicians will play individually at other venues they are paired with other musicians. In many cases, the organizers pair musicians who have not sung together before. It is fun to hear their personal stories, the sharing of songs and the improvised accompaniment and harmonies. Pretty cool vibes.

The main Festival takes place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. However, music starts on Thursday night and there is a checkout party on Monday. The 2020 Festival took place on January 17 – 20. With a January timeframe, weather becomes an unknown factor.

The venues are broken into a large venue called the Grand Boulevard and 29 smaller venues. Grand Boulevard is a large open field and able to hold all ticket holders at once (around 15,000). There is a large stage and a couple of viewing screens off to the sides. Grand Boulevard action takes place on Saturday and Sunday and includes some of the “bigger name” artist / groups.

The smaller venues include coffee shops, pizza parlors, brewery’s, bars, restaurants, resorts, and so on. They may hold from fifty to hundreds of people.

The Festival draws an older crowd. Really mellow feel. Many of the attendees live in the area and / or are snow birds from the US and Canada.

There were over 200 artists / bands playing during the festival. With so many artists and venues, it is a good idea to set a plan for the weekend. When you first arrive to the area, you can pickup your festival package which includes your wristband; booklet with musician / venue information; and schedule showing daily venues, musicians and times. The schedule allows you to start your planning.

I recommend factoring favorite musicians, venue size / distances and weather into your planning. On Saturday and Sunday, the festival schedule includes shows at the Grand Boulevard venue. These shows take place from noon until around 5 pm. Very limited activity occurs at other venues during this time. The assumption is that everyone will want to see the “big name” acts. After 5:00 pm, shows begin at all other venues and go until late in the night.

On Friday, shows start on a limited basis around noon and then kick into full swing about 4:00 pm at the smaller venues and go until late in the night. On Monday, you can catch more music at a limited number of venues from around 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 pm. While Thursday night is not part of the official Festival, there is plenty of music to see / hear.

For the Grand Boulevard venue, you will want to arrive about an hour early and get in line if you want seats close to the stage. You bring your own lawn chair and cooler.

For the smaller venues, I recommend finding one or two venues that have artists that you definitely want to hear and then staying there for the duration of the day. This way you can get seating and limit travel. The smaller venues are first come first serve. You will not hear any bad music so sit back and enjoy and you may leave having a new favorite musician.

If weather becomes a factor, there is not much you can do for the Grand Boulevard shows except bring an umbrella an warm clothes. However, for the smaller venues, you can try to pick those with indoor seating.

The Grand Boulevard Lineup for Saturday was Tanya Tucker, Indigo Girls and John Prine. For Sunday, it was Herman’s Hermits (Peter Noone), Don McLean and Brian Wilson.

At the smaller venues, I saw so much great music. Some of my favorites were Jeff Black, Birds of Chicago, Pat Byrne, Emily Earle, Sierra Hull, Jennifer Knapp, James McMurtry, Dan Rodriguez, The Reverend Shawn Amos and the Brotherhood, Amy Ray, Bob Schneider, Paul Thorn, and Ross Newell.

I camped at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park for the festival. It sits pretty much in the middle between the large venue and smaller venues. Nice place. I have stayed here on past travels and have written more on the park in previous blogs.

After leaving the festival, I stopped in Apalachicola for the night. This is a standard stop on my Florida travels. I camp for the night on main street and then seek out good food, good beer and good music. On this particular night, I met some locals and did a pub crawl. Back to the van mighty late.