Homegrown On The River Music Festival
Editor’s note: The event featured in this article occurred in 2017, but you’ll find this and other great happenings for the current year on our events page.
If you love music, sustainability efforts, kid friendliness, and scenic views, this summer music festival is for you – Homegrown On The River Music Festival is set for Aug. 3-5 at Byrd’s Adventure Center in Ozark.
The music
The event presents a stellar line up of local, regional, and national bands. Featured acts include Steep Canyon Ranger, Son Volt, Arkansauce, White Denim, The Squarshers, Kitchen Dwellers, Vintage Pistol, and more.
Sustainability
In an effort to make a small footprint on the environment during the festival, organizers are selling kits with items such as reusable plates and cups and bamboo silverware. However, festival-goers are encouraged to bring their own to use throughout the festival. After you finish eating you can bring plates and utensils to be washed at a central dishwashing station.
The food
Expect less “state fair food” and more handcrafted cuisine through handpicked food vendors such as Loblolly Creamery, Black Apple Crossing Cidery, Trailside Coffee Company, Flyway Brewing, Nat’cho Ordinary Taco Truck, and the Green Goat. Ozark Natural Foods of Fayetteville will have a mini-market on Saturday, so you can buy some fresh food for your campsite cooking.
Kid-friendly fun
In the spirit of a family-friendly camping event, Art Feeds, with the help of some local artists and teachers, will host a kids’ tent full of crafts made of re-purposed and recyclable materials. You can also stay in a special camping area designated for families with lights out at 11 p.m. A dance floor for kids only will be near the main stage, so parents can enjoy the music and keep an eye on their children.
The place
Byrd’s Adventure Center is the leading ATV park in Arkansas and one of the top canoe, kayak, and raft rental services on the wild and scenic Mulberry River. Since 1982, Byrd’s Adventure Center has been the original off road and ATV park in Arkansas. In addition to hundreds of miles of ORV and ATV trails in the surrounding Ozark National Forest, Byrd’s Adventure Center offers 800 acres of the ultimate trails, mud pits, and obstacles for your ATV, UTV (side by side), motorcycle, and stock or modified 4×4. With concerts beginning in the 1980s, Byrd’s was the original music venue in the Mulberry River Valley.
In 1995 Byrd’s staff obtained the first permit to teach rock climbing in the Ozark National Forest. Byrd’s Adventure Center was the first RV Campground and one of the first to offer lodging and cabin rentals along the wild and scenic Mulberry River. Arkansas’ first adventure race, the Ozark Challenge, originated at Byrd’s in 1998. The first hang gliding aerotow clinic in Arkansas took place at Byrd’s in 2004. In 2010 Byrd’s Adventure Center was base camp for the first Outward Bound courses in Arkansas. So, of course, it’s the natural place to host the first Homegrown Music Festival last year.