About the PEI Red Clay Bluegrass Festival
The Red Clay Bluegrass Festival began in Tignish nine years ago and will be celebrating its 10th Anniversary in 2010, August 13-15. The festival moved to its new facilities in 2006 on the West Prince Heritage Complex grounds containing 26 acres overlooking the Tignish River on one side and the Atlantic Ocean in the distance.
The festival grounds contain all new modern buildings, including state of the art bathrooms with hot & cold showers, a beautiful stage with back music room, entrance building, a sound building, a ways and means building and a canteen building.
The spacious grounds can hold hundreds of RV's and Tents. The whole grounds are well lit at night and offer electricity and water to almost 50 RV's. The grounds also has its own dumping station. The festival site is perhaps the most outstanding festival grounds in P.E.I.
Every year the festival committee books top Bluegrass bands from the Maritimes and always includes a popular USA band in its line-up. Last year for instance, IIIrd Tyme Out and The Anita Fisher Band performed from the USA, and this year 2009 is no exception as Tim Graves & Cherokee from Nashville will be performing. This year the committee reached out to Ontario, and have The popular band The Abrams Brothers from Kingston. There will be 12 bluegrass bands performing.
The whole week-end will have a Youth Showcase, Music Workshops, Open Mics and a Sunday morning Gospel Show. The committee is thrilled to offer such a variety of bands in its lineup for 2009.
Plans are now underway to build an all-purpose building to be used for storage, jamborees, music workshops and other functions which will add a much needed requirement for its facilities and we hope to have it ready by Festival time.
About Tignish PEI
Tignish Village, P.E.I. Information Tignish is a small village, population 900 in the west end of P.E.I. 10 minutes from the end of the Island, North Cape.
The village is a very close-knit community with fishing as the main industry. Tignish boasts the largest fishing harbour on the Island just outside the village. Co-operatives are the main theme of the village with Co-operative Grocery & Hardware stores, saw-mill, Gas pumps, Feed mill and their own Credit Union.
St. Simon & St. Jude Roman Catholic Church, 150 years old, is in the center and heart of the village. The original Convent is now The Heritage Inn.
There are many cottages in the area and a motel minutes away. Travelling to North Cape, visitors can see and observe a wind farm, The Interpretive Center, a 2 mile stone reef, separating the Atlantic Ocean and the Northumberland Strait or dine at the Wind & Reef Seafood Restaurant.
To find more information about Tignish, check their website: http://www.tignish.com