By David Esteppe
The fourth annual Winter Music Festival (WMF) took place in Lewisburg on Jan. 30, with over 40 musical acts performing at seven venues downtown.
The organizer of the festival Jim Snyder has the numbers estimated at press time as over 600 festival goers and around $12,000 in tickets sold.
Originally started as a fundraiser for a local family which lost their home to fire, the festival has grown into its own in year four. Snyder says that 20 percent of this year’s tickets sales will go to the ALS charity “Unlock the Cure” in honor of area resident Chally Erb, who was out in full force enjoying the night himself.
Lewisburg resident Bernie Holliday started the night early at Hill and Holler and said, “I made it to most of the venues. I danced quite a bit at the Greenbrier Valley Theatre to a great band out of Charleston called RiverJam. I saw a lot of familiar faces and made some new acquaintances. Great fun and can’t wait for next year.”
Amanda Jepsen, who is living in Lewisburg and attending the osteopathic school thoroughly enjoyed her first WMF and said, “I got to listen to bluegrass, rock, soul, R&B and folk music, all in a quarter mile radius, it was fantastic!”
Another local, Maureen Basha, says she had great fun and some of her highlights of the night included The Goodson Boys at the Sweet Shoppe, hitting the Irish Pub to catch Freeman-Jones, and returning to the Sweet Shoppe and catching Susanna Robinson-Kenga doing an enchanting cover of a David Bowie song.
Allan Dale Sizemore said, “The singer/songwriter stage at The Lewis Theatre was a huge success with a very diverse group of songwriters and a very attentive and appreciative audience.”
Festival goers in general report that all seven venues were rocking it and crowded. “The next Winter Music Festival can’t get here soon enough,” said a couple who used Airbnb, a website used to list, find and rent lodging, to come to Lewisburg from out of town for the festival.