A folk art festival that’s become a popular attraction in the month leading up to the Georgia Apple Festival returns this year with new activities and a new location.
The third annual Dancing Goats Folkfest will take place Saturday, Sept. 28, and Sunday, Sept. 29, from 9-5 p.m. both days. Previously held in the downtown Ellijay city parking lot, this year the festival moves to 518 River Street.
The new location, most recently home to the Ellijay Marketplace, will allow for more vendor space, parking and music, which will include a concert Saturday night, said event organizer Mona Lowe.
“It was starting to get a little crowded downtown and, this time of year, the downtown area really needs that parking lot,” Lowe said. ‘The new location is a pretty big lot and there’s plenty of parking down there.”
Folk art, which covers a broad spectrum including painting, sculpting, potting, woodwork and fabric art, remains the main focus of the event, which has attracted a slew of vending artists and artisans since its inception in 2017.
“We have some artists from previous years who are going to come back this year, like Charlie Dingler, who make whirligigs among other things, Pickens County wood carver and painter Billy Roper, Patty’s Potts, who does painted flower pots; David Helmick, who makes cigar box guitars and Shelby West, who’s a real well-known potter. We have a jeweler from Florida and two new potters, one from Chattanooga and one from Suches.”
Attendees will be entertained by live music performed by bands and artists including Rowdy Yates and the Trailer Hippies, as well as storytelling, throughout each day. The event will also feature children’s activities and food vendors, Lowe said. Some of the featured artists will be doing demonstrations.
“Shelby West will have his potter’s wheel and will be demonstrating and some of the jewelery makers make jewelery while they’re there,” Lowe said. “On Saturday, we’ll also be having a goat beauty pageant with live goats (brought by) different individuals who love them and love to show them off. Hopefully, they will return to dance on Sunday.”
A concert featuring the Gregg Erwin Ban, of Ellijay, and the Mike Watson Band, of Atlanta, will be held Saturday at 6 p.m. It will cap off the first festival day, Lowe said.
Admission to the festival is free, but concert admission is $10 a ticket.
“The concert is the special thing on Saturday and, on Sunday, the special thing will be a gospel brunch, from 9-11 a.m. We’ll have gospel music by a new group called the Gilmer Street Players,” said Lowe.
Dancing Goats, which Lowe described last year as being designed to “pay homage the old Saturday-go-to-town days and have the atmosphere of a mountain shindig,” will usher in this year’s busy fall festival season in Gilmer County.
“A lot of people like this time of year better before the big crowds come in. It’s a fun event to kick things off,” Lowe said.