You approach the park along Route 89, which also serves as Main Street. Vendors selling T-shirts, caps and jewelry line the sidewalks that lead to the entrance. But not until you pass through the gate and head downhill into Felts Park do you begin to realize the scope of this little country get-together. A sea of tents and RVs covers almost every inch of ground, except for the area immediately around the stage. A huge steel grandstand with concrete bleachers fills steadily as the evening progresses.
Lawn chairs fill the gap between the grandstand and the stage.
Two small fairways with vendors selling food, instruments, tapes, shirts and God knows what become rivers of people during Saturday night's band competition. While the competition on stage serves as the main event, the heart and soul of Galax lies beyond the bright lights, in hundreds of impromptu jam sessions under canopies and camper tarps. Through the maze, strains of fiddle and banjo morph from old-time into bluegrass and back again, sometimes taking a Celtic turn, a bagpipe wheezing through the night air. The Old Fiddlers Convention becomes an extended family. Faces light up as familiar eyes meet in a crowd of listeners.