The Museum of Appalachia, which has hosted the Tennessee Fall Homecoming Festival for the past 38 years in Clinton, TN, has announced that they will no longer be able to operate the festival. Their board says that the financial exposure and the manpower needs to manage a three-day event with major entertainers had just become too much for them.
When the festival started in 1980, it was envisioned as a one-time, one-day endeavor to help in the Museum’s mission to preserve and promote the history and culture of the region. But it has now grown to the point where tens of thousands of people attend each year, taking too much time away from the Museum’s primary functions.
There has been no word yet regarding whether another entity might be willing to take over management and save the Homecoming, or whether that will even be attempted.
If not, the 2017 festival in October will have been the last.
