As the bluegrass festival season is beginning to wane for the year 2026 now that August is here, I began to wonder how many bluegrass festivals are held in the US each calendar year. Fortunately, there is such a thing as Bluegrass RoadTrip, which has a very comprehensive listing of probably all the bluegrass music festivals in the US. Based on that website, here is what I found:
There is a total of 283 bluegrass music festivals held throughout the calendar year in the United States. The month containing the greatest number of bluegrass festivals is May with 42 festivals listed. Following May is June and August with 41 festivals each, September with 37, July with 31, April with 25, March with 15, October with 14, February with 12, January with 11, November with 10, and December with 4.
There are bluegrass music festivals held from Maine to Florida, from Georgia to Washington state, and Texas to Minnesota. Forty-five of the 50 US states have bluegrass music festivals. The states that do not currently have bluegrass festivals are Nebraska, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Alaska, and Hawaii.
Four states have only one bluegrass festival each year: Delaware, New Jersey, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The District of Columbia has one bluegrass festival.
The state with the most bluegrass music festivals held in a year is North Carolina with 39. Virginia follows North Carolina with 28 bluegrass festivals. Other states which have 10 or more bluegrass festivals in descending order are Kentucky – 24, Tennessee – 20, California – 18, Colorado – 16, Ohio – 15, Pennsylvania – 14, Missouri – 13, Wisconsin – 12, New York and Texas – 11, and Washington – 10.
To all professional and aspiring bluegrass bands out there, those are the numbers and the locations. The possibility exists of being booked and performing somewhere every weekend of the year in 45 of the 50 U.S. states.
Call your booking agent!
