NASHVILLE, Tennessee – The Homestead Festival, a first-of-its-kind outdoor event, will make its debut on June 3-4, 2022, at Grammy-winning and New York Times best-selling author Rory Feek‘s 100-acre historic farm in Columbia, Tennessee. Combining music and meaning, the two-day affair features musical performances, including headliner Kevin Costner and Modern West, as well as master-class lectures by prominent homesteading community leaders such as Dr. Temple Grandin, Joel Salatin, Justin Rhodes, and many others.
Although homesteading has been around since settlers moved to America and then headed west, the concept of growing your produce/livestock and living off the land has seen a resurgence, especially since the COVID pandemic when so many are/were facing uncertainty.
When Rory Feek’s beloved wife, Joey Feek, was still alive, they held their annual Bib and Buckle Fest, where thousands of fans from all over attended outdoor concerts on the front lawn of their historic farm.
Since Joey Feeks’s passing in 2016, Rory Feek has expanded the farm, adding more rotational-grazed pastures for cows and chickens, a one-room schoolhouse with a barnyard and livestock, multiple gardens, and a greenhouse, and continued to host concerts on the farm in his 300-seat venue known as Homestead Hall. All of this is to become more sustainable for his large, extended family, who live, work, and teach on the farm.
Rory Feek’s youngest daughter, 8-year-old Indiana Feek, has Down syndrome and attends the one-room schoolhouse. “She doesn’t even know she’s different. She is treated the same as everyone else and she is reading on a second-grade level,” Rory Feek explained.
The homesteading training starts early as the students learn about agriculture and gardening along with the reading, writing, and mathematics that are normally taught in school.
The format for attendees on June 3rd and 4th will be homesteading classes and lectures throughout the day and music on the main stage in the evenings as the sunsets.
Rory Feek added, “Multiple tents here on the grounds will host simultaneous speakers sharing their vast experience of learning to be more self-sustaining and living closer to the land, which I think are very important things that aren’t being passed down to future generations the way they used to be, especially with the struggles we are all facing in the world today. People are interested in learning the skills and information that can help them provide for their families in these challenging times and also add meaning and joy to their lives.”
Homesteading lectures and classes at the festival will vary from growing and preserving your own food, to keeping bees or baby chicks, to home birth and home-schooling. Attendees will also be able to explore and shop at the Homestead Marketplace, featuring over 100 vendors, skilled artisans, local food trucks, and a demonstration area showcasing a variety of homesteading arts and crafts like woodworkers, blacksmiths, gardening experts, flower farmers, artists, and many more.
In addition to the hands-on classes, this inaugural Homestead Festival will be the first time Feek has brought outdoor music to his homestead since Joey’s passing in 2016.
The musical headliners include Costner and West, who are making a rare stop on their Tales From Yellowstone 2 tour. Also performing will be The Isaacs, Jimmy Fortune, and the Brotherly Love project (Bradley Walker, Mike Rogers, Fortune, and Ben Isaacs), as well as other bands on a smaller stage.
“We are all, of course, over-the-moon excited to have Mr. Costner and his band coming to join us for the event. But the truth is, we are just as excited to have all the incredible performers and speakers that are taking the time from their busy lives to come to Tennessee and share their knowledge and skills with individuals and families who too will be coming from all over to take part in this special weekend,” stated Rory Feek.
The VIP passes have already sold out, but General Admission tickets for the two-day event are still available for $295. This will give attendees access to all outdoor speaker presentations, the Maker’s Corner filled with hands-on demonstrations, a homestead marketplace with 100+ vendors, food trucks, and all the live music that is played nightly.
“The concept of homesteading can be implemented to whatever degree a person is comfortable and able to practice it,” confirmed Rory Feek.
It may simply be organic container plants in your apartment or a full-on hobby farm where you grow your own food and livestock.
Many of us desire to develop a more wholesome lifestyle as we live our lives more sustainably. Whatever your interest level is, the Homestead Festival is the place where you can enrich your life, learn to use your resources more efficiently and in the long run, change your future and your family’s future.
People from across the USA will be in attendance at this one-of-a-kind festival.
To register for this event, go to the website. To keep up with everything about the Homestead Festival, be sure to follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
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Bethany Bowman is a freelance entertainment writer. You can follow her blog, Bethany Writes, on Instagram, and Twitter.
