COURTESY OF ELYSE BRUNT
Musicians perform at the South Florida Folk and Acoustic Music Festival in 2024.
Elyse Brunt, co-director of the South Florida Folk and Acoustic Music Festival, said the festival offers high quality folk music for the whole day. She said she’s looking forward to seeing the musicians, whether she’s heard the music before or hearing the music for the first time.
“A lot of the musicians that are coming from out of town, I’ve been friends with for a long time,” Brunt said. “I’m always excited about hearing new music that I haven’t really heard before and getting to be friends with people that play great music.”
The South Florida Folk and Acoustic Music Festival is an annual event. This year, it starts Jan. 31 and ends Feb. 2 at Bergeron Rodeo Grounds.
“It’s a three day music festival and we have mostly folk and acoustic music. We also have jazz, blues, bluegrass, country, Americana roots, world music,” Brunt said.
The festival will have two stages, with the Gator Stage having national musicians like Rachael Sage, Jacob Johnson and Robin Greenstein. The Will McLean stage will feature Florida musicians like Kiah, Grant Livingston and Rebecca Marie.
Joe Jencks, a songwriter based in Chicago, will perform on Feb. 1 at 8:30 p.m.
“I would say that music is a unifying force in the world. Music is a thing that helps us see our commonalities and celebrate our differences. And gathering together with other human beings and remembering how much we enjoy being a community is really important,” Jencks said.
Additionally, the festival will have vendors that sell food, crystals, shirts, jewelry and other items. There will be workshops throughout the festival where guests can learn about songwriting, playing the guitar or ukulele, and more.
The festival will also have a Singer Songwriter competition on Feb. 1 from 10 a.m. to noon. Twelve artists will perform, and the top three will be announced at 5:15 p.m.
Sarah McCulloch, a singer-songwriter based near Bergeron Rodeo Grounds, will perform at 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 2. McCulloch was one of the top three winners of the Singer Songwriter competition in 2024.
“There’s no other festival like this really,” McCulloch said. “We include a lot more international influence, Latin influence, South American, Cuban. It’s very international versus a lot of other folk festivals I’ve been to.”
For people who want to get into songwriting like McCulloch, she encourages them to sing into their voice recording app on their phones whenever they get inspiration.
“Good music is about procuring emotion from the audience. I have some upbeat songs and I have some serious songs. I hope that the songs convey the emotion and that people can have some kind of shared experience,” McCulloch said.
Tickets for the festival will be available for purchase at the gate, ranging from $27 – $125 depending on the day. Brunt said guests will be able to buy late-day tickets for $42, where they will be able to enter the festival later into the day.
“A lot of people don’t want to come and spend all day, and they want to just come and see the headliners. We have tickets where people can come at 5:00 and watch all the headliners play,” Brunt said.
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